664. In recent years the island has belonged to Richard Murphy, who wrote some of his best poems out of his occasional days of retreat there.
Not long after the era of the saints, the Conmaicne Mara appear out of the shadows of prehistory as the secular rulers of the region. The Conmaicne were a people who claimed descent from Conmac, a son of the legendary Fergus Macraoi and Queen Maeve; the branch of them who lived west of the Corrib were known as the Conmaicne Mara, the Conmaicne of the sea, to distinguish them from their cousins further east. The Ó Cadhlas were their leaders; the Annals of Inishfallen mention a Murtagh ÓCadhla, chief of the Conmaicne Mara, among those who fell fighting the Norsemen at Clontarf in 1014. Later they were reduced to historical footnotes by the coming of the O’Flahertys, but their name (anglicized as Keeley) still occurs in Connemara.
The O’Flahertys, a powerful clan who had given several kings to the province of Connacht in the seventh century, held the rich limestone plains east of Lough Corrib until the thirteenth century, when the de Burgos, the first of the Normans to move so far west, gradually forced them to retire to Connemara. With the O’Flahertys came dependent clans whose names occur in local history: the O’Hallorans, the O’Lees, the Duanes. The Joyces, a Welsh-Norman family, settled in what became known as the Joyce Country, around the Maam Valley, under the O’Flahertys’ protection . By the sixteenth century the O’Flahertys were building tower-houses on the Norman model, from which, if the oral traditions be true, they tyrannized over humbler folk. The main stronghold of the eastern branch of the O’Flahertys was at Aughnanure near Oughterard. The western branch had castles spread out around the coastline, at Ard (near Carna), Bunowen, Doon (near Streamstown) and Renvyle, and inland at Ballynahinch on a former crannóg. Small communities of Carmelites and Dominicans were established by the O’Flahertys near this last-mentioned centre of power, from which, under the Elizabethan dispensation, the old Conmaicne Mara was renamed as the barony of Ballynahinch. Mere vestiges of the Ard, Bunowen and Doon castles survive, while the lake-tower at Ballynahinch has been much altered by subsequent owners to serve variously as a prison, a brew-house and a picnic-bower. Thus the best-preserved of the Connemara tower-houses is now Renvyle, which has been neatly cross-sectioned by collapse, revealing its simple structure of three square, vaulted rooms one above the other, linked by spiral stairs in a corner.
The O’Flaherty chiefs ruled Connemara according to the ancient Brehon Law until Elizabeth’s wily soldier-statesmen, who rarely ventured into the region, divided and seduced them. In 1585 they accepted the agreement known as the Composition of Connacht, abrogating their Gaelic rights and enregistering themselves in the feudal hierarchy. Thenceforth they were hereditary landlords rather than the elective custodians of clan territory, and the chief the Crown wished to see as head of all could call himselfSir Murrough O’Flaherty. Nevertheless to the notables of the growing merchant-city of Galway the O’Flahertys were still the atavistic lords of a hinterland rank with rebellion, smuggling and piracy. It took the fierce political and religious cross-currents induced in Ireland by England’s Civil War to bring Galway’s citizens and the O’Flahertys together even momentarily; that was in 1642 when Galway opted for the Catholic Confederation, then campaigning in the name of the King, and called in the O’Flahertys’ hordes of ‘wild Irish’ to help besiege the nearby English fort, which was manned by supporters of Parliament. But King Charles lost the war and his head, and Cromwell came to purge Ireland of its rebelliousness. By July of 1651 one of his generals was encamped before the city of Galway and his ships were in the bay. Iarchonnacht, and especially
Not long after the era of the saints, the Conmaicne Mara appear out of the shadows of prehistory as the secular rulers of the region. The Conmaicne were a people who claimed descent from Conmac, a son of the legendary Fergus Macraoi and Queen Maeve; the branch of them who lived west of the Corrib were known as the Conmaicne Mara, the Conmaicne of the sea, to distinguish them from their cousins further east. The Ó Cadhlas were their leaders; the Annals of Inishfallen mention a Murtagh ÓCadhla, chief of the Conmaicne Mara, among those who fell fighting the Norsemen at Clontarf in 1014. Later they were reduced to historical footnotes by the coming of the O’Flahertys, but their name (anglicized as Keeley) still occurs in Connemara.
The O’Flahertys, a powerful clan who had given several kings to the province of Connacht in the seventh century, held the rich limestone plains east of Lough Corrib until the thirteenth century, when the de Burgos, the first of the Normans to move so far west, gradually forced them to retire to Connemara. With the O’Flahertys came dependent clans whose names occur in local history: the O’Hallorans, the O’Lees, the Duanes. The Joyces, a Welsh-Norman family, settled in what became known as the Joyce Country, around the Maam Valley, under the O’Flahertys’ protection . By the sixteenth century the O’Flahertys were building tower-houses on the Norman model, from which, if the oral traditions be true, they tyrannized over humbler folk. The main stronghold of the eastern branch of the O’Flahertys was at Aughnanure near Oughterard. The western branch had castles spread out around the coastline, at Ard (near Carna), Bunowen, Doon (near Streamstown) and Renvyle, and inland at Ballynahinch on a former crannóg. Small communities of Carmelites and Dominicans were established by the O’Flahertys near this last-mentioned centre of power, from which, under the Elizabethan dispensation, the old Conmaicne Mara was renamed as the barony of Ballynahinch. Mere vestiges of the Ard, Bunowen and Doon castles survive, while the lake-tower at Ballynahinch has been much altered by subsequent owners to serve variously as a prison, a brew-house and a picnic-bower. Thus the best-preserved of the Connemara tower-houses is now Renvyle, which has been neatly cross-sectioned by collapse, revealing its simple structure of three square, vaulted rooms one above the other, linked by spiral stairs in a corner.
The O’Flaherty chiefs ruled Connemara according to the ancient Brehon Law until Elizabeth’s wily soldier-statesmen, who rarely ventured into the region, divided and seduced them. In 1585 they accepted the agreement known as the Composition of Connacht, abrogating their Gaelic rights and enregistering themselves in the feudal hierarchy. Thenceforth they were hereditary landlords rather than the elective custodians of clan territory, and the chief the Crown wished to see as head of all could call himselfSir Murrough O’Flaherty. Nevertheless to the notables of the growing merchant-city of Galway the O’Flahertys were still the atavistic lords of a hinterland rank with rebellion, smuggling and piracy. It took the fierce political and religious cross-currents induced in Ireland by England’s Civil War to bring Galway’s citizens and the O’Flahertys together even momentarily; that was in 1642 when Galway opted for the Catholic Confederation, then campaigning in the name of the King, and called in the O’Flahertys’ hordes of ‘wild Irish’ to help besiege the nearby English fort, which was manned by supporters of Parliament. But King Charles lost the war and his head, and Cromwell came to purge Ireland of its rebelliousness. By July of 1651 one of his generals was encamped before the city of Galway and his ships were in the bay. Iarchonnacht, and especially
Similar Books
