Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 16th century
In 1326 the Red Earl of Ulster retired into the monastery of Athassel,
where he died soon afterwards. His great power descended to his grandson
William, who was murdered at or near Carrickfergus in 1333 by the
Mandevilles and other Ulster colonists. By his wife, Maud Plantagenet,
great-grand-daughter of Henry III., he left one child, Elizabeth, who was
only a few months old at the date of his murder. Twenty years afterwards
she married Lionel Duke of Clarence, and became ancestress of the Tudors
and Stuarts. The Earldom of Ulster thus ultimately merged in the Crown.
But the Irish De Burgos refused to acknowledge a baby, who, as a royal
ward, would be brought up independently of them; and they preferred to
follow the sons of Sir William, the Red Earl's brother. William the
elder assumed the title of MacWilliam Uachtar, or the Upper, took all
Galway for his portion, and became ancestor of the Clanricarde family.
His brother, Sir Edmund, as MacWilliam Iochtar, or the Lower, took Mayo,
and founded the family which bears that title. They threw off their
allegiance to England, and became more Irish than the Irish. They
reappear in the sixteenth century under the modern name of Burke. About
the same time several other Anglo-Normans assumed Irish names. The
Stauntons became MacAveelys; the Berminghams MacFeoris; the D'Exeters,
MacJordans; the Barretts, MacAndrews, MacThomins, MacRoberts, and
MacPaddins; the Nangles, MacCostelloes; the Mayo Prendergasts,
MacMaurices. The De Burgos themselves had many subordinate branches, each
with its peculiar Irish name, as MacDavid, MacPhilbin, MacShoneen,
MacGibbon, MacWalter, and MacRaymond. Nor was the practice confined to
Connaught. Some of the Leinster Fitzgeralds became MacThomases and
MacBarons; and some of the same house in Munster were transfigured into
MacGibbons, MacThomaisins, and MacEdmonds. Many other Anglo-Normans or
English families were more or less completely transformed in the same
way. It is only necessary to mention that the Wesleys or Wellesleys, who
gave England its greatest captain, were sometimes called MacFabrenes; and
that the Bissetts of Antrim, whose connections in Scotland gave the
Tudors such trouble, may still be traced as Makeons. In the district near
Dublin, which got the name of the English Pale, some Irish residents took
English names, and the practice was encouraged by a statute of Edward IV.
There is probably no country in Europe where the population is so
thoroughly mixed as it is in Ireland.
[Sidenote: Edward III. creates three great earldoms: Kildare, Desmond,
and Ormonde.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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