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Dysert O'Dea, 1318Edward Bruce's army was probably the greatest yet seen in Ireland; it was certainly the finest, since it was a veteran force, fresh from a major victory. Until 1318 it was invincible. The Scots overcame or overawed Richard de Burgh, the Red Earl of Ulster, at Connor in Antrim in 1315 . Moving south, they defeated Roger Mortimer at Kells in Meath. In the following year they scattered another Anglo-Norman fOlce near Athy in Kildare. In 1317 they threatened Dublin, and then, shying away, marched to Limerick and back. They had, by the time of their final retreat to Ulster, moved through a great part of the Ireland of the Norman settlement, and everywhere they went they had destroyed crops, burnt houses and lived on the country. They left famine behind them. As the annalists say: 'Theft, famine and destruction of men occurred throughout Ireland for the space of three years and a half, and people used actually to eat one another throughout Ireland.'On the periphery of this warfare and destruction other struggles took place. The O'Donnells raided Sligo. The O'Moores, O'Tooles, O'Byrnes and O'Hanlons became restive in Leinster and south Ulster. Felim O'Connor, King of Connacht, turned against the de Burghs and, in the biggest battle yet fought in Connacht, was defeated by William de Burgh and Richard de Bermingham at Athenry in August 1316. Ireland grew accustomed to warfare, not local warfare on a small scale, but the warfare of big battles, hardened fighters, good weapons and new techniques. The Scots were fine soldiers. They were at this time beginning a long career as stubborn infantrymen that was to earn for their country no little military fame. Bannock-burn was a foot battle. So for the Scots were Flodden in 1513; and Pinkie in 1547; and the best soldiers of the armies of the Covenant in the seventeenth century were infantry. Ireland, like Scotland, was a poor country where foot soldiers were easier to raise and support than horse. The example of Bruce's army cannot have been lost on his Irish supporters and imitators; as we shall see later, the galloglas, the fighters of Scottish origin who transformed Irish warfare in the centuries after the time of the Bruces, were footmen too. And the two big Gaelic battles of the Bruce period, Athenry and Dysert O'Dea, were, like all Gaelic battles, foot fights. The practice of the time showed that the age of the dominance of the mounted knight, the great paladin of the Norman invasion, was passing away. He was not succeeded in Ireland, as he was elsewhere, either by archers or spearmen. Big native armies which could show large bodies of infantry did not appear in Ireland until fighting ceased in the sixteenth century to be the exclusive preserve of the upper classes .. But a decline in his own warlike qualities and an improvement in those of the individuals who opposed him, together with an improvement in their equipment, dimmed the knight's lustre. The heavy horsemen of the de elares at the beginning of the fourteenth century, still wearing mail armour-or perhaps some with the rudiments of the plate armour that was to supersede it-and still carrying lance and sword, no longer dominated the battlefield. They no longer showed the aggressive spirit of Raymond Ie Gros and Miles de Cogan. The archers who went with them were no longer the bowmen of the Welsh marches. Moreover, and of more significance, the Irish had stolen some of their thunder. More than a century's association, fraternisation and struggle had led to an interchange in which the Irish, militarily, were the gainers. The Normans appear to have adopted the lighter Irish horses-or, more likely, the qualities of the native breed predominated; thus as shock troops the Normans lost weight. In earlier times the Irish were notably deficient in armour. Now they had come to adopt or to copy the armour of the intruders. It is recorded that the victors at the battle of Athenry gave up some of the armour which they had captured from the vanquished-that is, from the Irish-to pay for the erection of the wall of the town of Athenry: 'for every Englishman that won a double harness gave half of his booty to help to build the walls of the same town.' This means that armour was, if not plentiful, certainly not unknown among the Irish at that time. The leaders of the Clare O'Briens at the time of the battle of Dysert O'Dea are described as wearing shirts or hauberks of mail over padded aketons, together with mail coifs or hoods and conical iron helmets. The aketon or garment padded with cotton, here worn as was usual under the mail, was a protection in itself, and, being cheaper than mail, was no doubt worn independently by warriors of lesser substance. Leather armour was also in use at the time, and may have been used by the Irish. Such equipment was new to the Irish armoury. Much that was new in the way of suggestion, if not of material, must have come too in very recent years from the Scots and the feudal forces that opposed them. Felim O'Connor, who was defeated and killed at Athenry, had been present with his forces at the battle of Connor. Many of the Thomond O'Briens fought at Athenry. Many of them too were in contact with the Scots near Limerick at Easter, 1317. There were plenty of opportunities for the spread of ideas, and ideas have never been slow to spread during war. There were all these reasons for the battle of Dysert O'Dea's being a new type of contest. It is perhaps the least known, but it is certainly not the least interesting of Irish battles. The history of the Battle of Dysert O'Dea, 1318 continues here Taken from Irish Battles by G.A. Hayes-McCoy, published by Appletree Press. Further reading: A Little History of Ireland by Martin Wallace with illustrations by Ian McCullough. Click here for more information on the book. Previous instalments of 'the Battle of Dysert O'Dea': Part 1 | Part 2 Further instalments of 'the Battle of Dysert O'Dea': Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |
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