At the Edge of Ireland by David Yeadon Read Free Book Online Page A

mess. Most famous is that Book of Kells in Trinity College Library. Beautiful, beautiful thing. And then there’s that book writ recently— How the Irish Saved Civilization —that tells if it wasn’t for our monks in the monasteries in lonely places here, we’d have lost most of the world’s classical learning. Think of that! Little old Ireland savin’ the whole cultural world! Anyway, the Vikings were a real nuisance and a threat to the Church, so around AD 1169 the pope, who just happened to be English at the time, granted the Anglo-Norman King Henry II—you’ll remember the Normans had conquered England in 1066—everybody remembers that date. He granted him the whole of Ireland as an ‘inheritance’ to protect his churches and whatnot.”
    â€œThe pope just gave it to the Normans—despite all the powerful Celts and Vikings still living here?”
    â€œTha’s right. Jus’ gave it. He was the pope—the big boss! So—when Strongbow the Norman invaded to claim the king’s ‘inheritance,’ it turned out he had a pretty easy time taking over the whole place and building mighty castles and dividing the land up between all his Norman barons. And there’s an old saying that they liked the place so much that they became ‘more Irish than the Irish.’”
    â€œAnd that was it? The Irish just accepted things…”
    â€œWell, there was a bit of a ruckus when Scotland tried to attack us in AD 1315 and boot out the Normans, and also Richard II, who tried twice in the 1390s to remind the Irish who was boss but made a real mess of things and ended up with only Dublin and the Pale—a small area around Dublin—as his little tiny empire…”
    â€œSo the English Normans were booted out?”
    â€œWell, not quite. It looked bad for them for a while, but then Henry VIII, after his break with the Catholic church—you remember, because the pope wouldn’t allow his divorce from two of his wives, well—he and his Protestant church of Englanders came over and grabbed all the land back. And then his daughter Queen Elizabeth I sent in massive armies in the early 1600s, then James I packed Northern Ireland, you know, the ‘six counties’—now called Ulster—with English and Scottish Protestant settlers. And then in came Oliver Cromwell in 1649 and his vicious army, which pretty well wiped out all Catholic power. And, oh God, was he cruel—massacring the population of Drogheda, slaughtering hundreds of women in Wexford, expelling all the Catholics from cities like Cork—just booted them out. I remember my mother’s warnings when I was young—‘Cromwell’ll get you if you’re bad!’”
    â€œPoor old Ireland. What a lousy history.”
    â€œOh my, sir—I’ve hardly begun! It goes from bad to worse an’ then even worser! Especially when James II was king from AD 1685, and he was Catholic, would y’believe, and tried to be a bit nicer to us, but he got the boot too, and in comes William of Orange with his huge army and smashes us to pieces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and then later at Aughrim and Limerick. Then he, William—once again—hands out lands to his most powerful ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ supporters, enforces the terrible penal laws to destroy Catholic power, and right through to the 1850s the Protestants and ‘Orangemen’ fight off rebellion after rebellion—Henry Grattan, the Society of United Irishmen, the ‘White Boys’ and ‘Ribbon Men,’ Daniel O’Connell, and on and on. And then comes the worst thing of all.”

    Liam Farrell—“Historian”
    â€œLet me guess. The great potato famine?”
    â€œSpot-on, sir. Ah, so y’do know a bit of our terrible convoluted turmoil then. Although no one can truly know what a black time that was from 1845 to 1850. They