We are surrounded by certain parts of Ireland’s history (the way when you are in Poland you are surrounded by WW II history), and are getting a mighty lesson in those. After a day, yesterday, of rain, keeping us inside working until a late walk, today’s rain gave way to intermittent sunshine by late morning, and we set out with our new umbrellas to visit the local BIG castle, Lismore. During late afternoon tea (a stout for Donald), we reviewed what we could figure out from it all. Here is a short list of important historical events that are central to the history of this area (this leaves out the earliest history and mythology of Ireland, including when the Celts arrived, and also leaves out the more recent Irish rebellions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries).
The first Christian monks began arriving in the 400s, including St. Declan, whose story we were introduced to at Ardmore. Very quickly there was built up a monolithic ecclesiastic machinery, with Patrick being the head bishop of Ireland, another important bishop being in Cashel, and smaller monasteries and diocese, with local bishops (who all seem to have become saints), such as Carthage, who created an enormously important center of learning for the entire European world during the Dark Ages (remember your history lessons, about how it was only Irish monks who kept European civilization alive?). Carthage’s monastic center in Lismore became famous the European world-over (reputedly the greatest monastic school of the 8th century), and many important European men studied there (including Alfred the Great). The cathedral there is now a Church of Ireland (=Anglican) Cathedral, and still has a wall that is from the 8th or 9th century, plus artifacts from that time period, too.
In the 800s and 900s, the Vikings began raiding up all the river systems of Ireland (it turns out the Roman boats couldn’t manage the Irish rivers, which is one big reason why the Romans never tried to colonize Ireland), including the River Blackwater (right across the street), concentrating especially on the monasteries, which had great wealth stored in them. On the road near here is a ruin of a castle and church—Knockmaon—where archeologists found Viking coins and the remains from a sword-making smithy. The Vikings established settlements in what are now big cities (Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Wexford, Limerick), and when they were defeated by the Celts (called the Irish) at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, the relatively small number of them who were here stayed, and became absorbed by the Celtic Irish. In terms of the wealth of the monasteries, when renovation work was being done on Lismore Castle in the 19th century, workers discovered The Lismore Book (a fascinating collection of European histories, re-written for the Irish, plus imagined conversations between a bishop and one of the Fianna (mythic Irish heroes) about Christianity, which makes Roman Christianity look pretty bad. The comments are that it was intended to point out the strains between the Roman and the Celtic churches, with Rome looking theologically absurd and the Celtic church looking much smarter). Also found was the Lismore Bishop’s jewel-and-gold-covered crozier (bishop’s staff, shaped like a shepherd’s) from the 12th century. Perhaps they hid them in the castle to keep raiders from getting them.
In 1066 (remember?) the Normans (who were basically originally Scandinavians who had moved to northern France and had become French-ified) conquered England (William the Conqueror), changed English political systems and the English language forever, and began the royal line that included Henry II, who married Eleanor of Aquitaine and had a number of sons, including the next king, Richard (The Lionheart), who basically spent no time in England at all, but spent all his time on Crusades and battles in Europe, and his brother John, who had to rule in his absence (remember those Robin Hood stories). The Normans take Ireland from the Irish chieftains (who would not ever band together, but instead each treated the new arrivals as just one more tribe they could ally with or fight) in 1069 (or 72?). The Irish-Norman family we keep encountering here is the Fitzgeralds. Henry II comes to Lismore on his way to Cashel (the center of Irish ecclesiastic power), where the Irish chieftains have been asked by the pope to submit to him. His son, Prince John, is given Lordship of Ireland in 1185, and comes here and builds a fort (“great fort” =Leis Mohr) on the Blackwater near Lismore. He also builds a large motte-and-bailey castle in Dungarvan, a large town on the coast about 15 miles from here. This castle still stands, from the 12th century, and it is one of the only ones of its kind in Ireland. Once he becomes King, though, he hasn’t got time for this part of Ireland, and gives his castle to the local bishop as his residence. Local Irish chieftains destroy the original fort in about 1190. Meanwhile, perversely, French becomes a local language!!! The Normans build lots and lots of castles, and introduce to Ireland the whole feudal system so common on the Continent, meaning that the Irish peasants become part of a manor system, working for a local lord who sends tithes to the lord above him, and so on, up to the king of England. The Normans intermarry happily with the local Irish, and many become Irish gentry, “Anglo-Normans” who are entirely Irish-ified. These Anglo-Norman families will play a part of every rebellion against various forms of British rule from then on.
King Henry the 8th orders the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries in England and Ireland in the 1500s, and many Catholic cathedrals and churches are forcibly converted to Protestant ones, including St. Carthage’s Cathedral in Lismore. His daughter is Queen Elizabeth, and her favorite, Sir Walter Raleigh, is given, to lease, an enormous estate, covering all of western Waterford County (over 42,000 acres), including the existing castle at Lismore. Every town and village, every farm and mountain we have seen, is part of this estate. The castle is taken from the Lismore bishop, and given to the Protestant Sir Raleigh, by the “corrupt and avaricious” archbishop in Cashel, who is scandalous for being both a Catholic AND a Protestant bishop. But the “Elizabethan Wars” ravage the area, and the estate loses money. The Elizabethan Wars refer to a period of time when the armies of Elizabeth were ranged against the Irish chieftains and their allies (probably Anglo-Normans), partly in response to the forced conversions from Catholicism, and partly in response to the political system that deprives them of rights within the kingdom. In addition, a local battle had been fought near the nearby town of Capequin on the Blackwater (between where we are and Lismore). It was fought between the Earl of Desmond and the Earl of Ormond, over non-payment of taxes by The Fitzgerald of Dromana (a couple of kilometers down the road from here) to the Earl of Desmond, who was collecting for the crown. These men were cousins, by the way. 300 men were killed in this battle, mostly Fitzgerald’s.
Elizabeth was determined that this would be the last basically inter-tribal battle in Ireland (it was), and imposed a protestant based plantation system on the local peasants and gentry. And once the war was done, with England winning of course, the plantation system was imposed on a large scale in all of Ireland, most extremely in Ulster in the north.
This involved the forced removal of Irish Catholics and the importation of British and Scottish Protestant peasants and overlords, who were re-organized into a plantation system of agricultural production (all of this, of course, created its own later rebellions and wars). Locally, Raleigh happily sold off his huge estate for 1,500 pounds (not a lot, even then, for an estate this size) to a man from England, Richard Boyle, who had arrived in Ireland in 1588, a second son with just over 27 pounds in his pocket, a diamond ring, and a bracelet. He amassed great wealth through many shenanigans (which the locals don’t discuss, preferring to keep him as local hero), including marriage to a wealthy girl from a powerful Irish family. He was once reduced to poverty by an uprising of Irish who destroyed his estate, and at another point, after being accused of treason, befriended Queen Elizabeth and won her trust. He became appointed to various high posts in Ireland, using these to amass his fortune, and one of these was High Treasurer of Ireland. While such, he also became the First Earl of Cork (just to our south), and developed further the local industrial revolution Raleigh had begun (they both are responsible for denuding the local forests, which covered the land until then, by having them cut down the trees, to be turned into charcoal to fire the machines of industry—can you say Saruman?). Boyle died in 1644, but not before siring 14 children, 7 sons and 7 daughters; his sons played important roles in suppressing yet another Irish rebellion in the 1640s and 50s, which wound up finalizing Protestant and British rule in Ireland. He innovated a particular system of rule locally, having 13 smaller castles on his estate (which today litter the local landscape, and one of which is across the river, in some of our photos) to centralize his authority, and also expanded his estates by grabbing other towns. Of course, as a feudal manorial system, there were also petty lords, mayors, governors, and sheriffs, who also lived in large manor houses, which also litter the local landscape (we can see one beautiful one right across the river). Capoquin House and Dromana House are the closest ones to where we are staying, I think.
Richard Boyle enlarged Lismore Castle, but most importantly, sired Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry and a philosopher; he developed Boyle’s Law (regarding the constant relationship between the temperature, pressure and mass of gasses).
The 1640 wars led to the castle and town being sacked by the Catholic Confederacy, rebelling against the plantation system, which had disenfranchised and dispossessed them. The castle was “ruinated”, and while some restoration work was carried out by Richard’s son, the next earl, very little was done on it until about 1820.
Richard’s great-grand-daughter, Charlotte Boyle, in 1753 married into the Cavendish family, the Dukes of Devonshire (in England) (This is suddenly like reading a Jane Austen novel). As the only surviving heir to the Earl of Cork, she inherited all his estates. Her grandson, the 6th Duke of Devonshire, was the “Bachelor Duke.” He spent tons of money and time restoring the castle and grounds, and was friends with Dickens, Thackeray, Spencer, and others. He hired a famous botanist/architect/engineer/inventor, Sir Joseph Paxton, to be Head Gardener, and we spent two lovely hours today in those incredible gardens, wandering around, close to the castle, which is still off-and-on inhabited by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and their family (after all, they still have their primary home, Chatsworth, in England, not to mention additional English and Irish castles and other properties). The story is that Spencer wrote the beginning of “The Fairy Queen” while sitting in the yew avenue (gorgeous) in the Lismore gardens.
Lord Charles Cavendish (1905-1944), son of the 9th Duke, was married to Adele Astaire, sister of Fred, in 1932. They lived in Lismore Castle from the time they married until he died in 1944, and Fred Astaire and other famous Hollywood types were frequent visitors.
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