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From: "STEPHANIE STEPHENSON" <>
Subject: [DWYER-L] The O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh: Book Intro I
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 14:06:40 +0100


Taken from "The O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh: The History of an Irish Sept" by
Sir Michael O'Dwyer, published 1933.

"INTRODUCTION (I of XI)

This work is an attempt to elucidate some of the leading facts in the
history of a typical Irish sept, the O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh (the cell or
chapel of the monk) in mid-Tipperary; and the aim of this introductory
chapter is to bring out the connection of those facts with the general
history of the time.
>From the seventh century to the Cromwellian Confiscation, 1,000 years later,
the "Territory" or Barony of Kilnamanagh, with an area of about 100 square
miles, was the ancestral domain of the O'Dwyers, organised as a compact and
vigorous tribe of Free clansmen under their tribal Chief.
The whole social and political organisation of the Irish, from the earliest
ages down to the Cromwellian conquest, was based on the tribal, clan or sept
in much the same way as among the Celtic clans and tribes of Scotland and
Wales. The history of Ireland, apart from the inter-tribal warfare caused
by the ambitions of the tribal Chiefs to extend their domains, is the
history of the struggles to defend the lands and tribal system first against
the Norse, later against the Anglo-Norman invaders; the attempts from Henry
VIII onwards to force the Reformed Church on a Catholic people widened the
struggle into an almost national one not only for their lands but for their
religion, and at that stage nearly all the Anglo-Irish within and without
the Pale who had adhered to the old faith joined with their Irish
neighbours.
The O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh, though not one of the most powerful clans, like
the O'Briens of North Munster and the MacCarthys of South Munster, were not
backward in that struggle, which went on in varying forms until the final
settlement of the Irish land question in the present century. Thus their
story is not a mere record of the fluctuating fortunes of the sept and its
Chiefs, but it has, as a background, the history of the ever-shifting
English policy in regard to the Irish people and their institutions. For
this reason the history of a particular sept is typical of that of most of
the three-score or more tribes and septs who made up what, down to Tudor
times, was known as "the King's Irish Enemies"; it is also illustrative of
the varying and often conflicting policies of the English authorities.
In this memoir, the writer, who is one of the Kilnamanagh O'Dwyers, has
endeavoured to ascertain the facts by reference to all the relevant
material, Irish, Anglo-Irish and English, within his reach. Unfortunately
many valuable records, especially relating to the Stuart and Commonwealth
periods, were destroyed in the Dublin Four Courts in the explosion of 1922.
This loss, has, however, been partially made good by researches in the
Bodleian, the British Museum, the London Record Office, the Royal Irish
Academy, the National Library, Dublin, and the Office of Arms in Dublin
Castle, to the authorities of all of which the writer owes his grateful
acknowledgements.
The O'Dwyers emerge from the Celtic twilight of tribal conflicts and
struggles against the Danes at the Battle of Clontarf, A.D. 1014, where the
Norse Confederacy, supported by MacMurrough, King of Leinster, was finally
routed by Brian, King of Munster and at the time High-King of Ireland.
Brian, who died on the field, was supported by nearly all the Munster
tribes, among them, according to the ancient chronicler quoted in Chapter I,
the O'Dwyers and their neighbours the O'Ryans and O'Carrolls of Tipperary.
After Clontarf the inevitable tribal warfare was resumed - in 1093,
according to the Four Masters, O'Callaghan was killed by O'Dwyer at
Diamhliag - and continued down to the Anglo-Norman invasions.
Henry II was acknowledged Lord of Ireland by many of the Irish Chiefs; but
this was merely a nominal submission, based neither on actual conquest nor
effective occupation. However, Henry and his successors down to Tudor times
acted as if there had been a conquest of Ireland as effective as William of
Normandy's conquest of England, when the national resistance had been
overwhelmed. Accordingly, fortified by the legal fictions in which the
Norman lawyers were so expert, they proceeded to parcel out much of the
Irish lands to their Anglo-Norman barons. Theobald Fitzwalter, known as
Butler, the founder of the great Ormond (East Munster) family, and de Burgo,
or Bourke, later created Baron of Castle-Connell, appear to have been given
some at least of the Kilnamanagh lands, and though their title existed only
on paper, it was made the basis of subsequent but unsuccessful claims to
dispossess the O'Dwyers.
In South Tipperary the Norman occupation, following the rich valley of the
Suir, was steadily made effective by settlements and castles; the Chiefs of
the tribes were either ousted by the Butlers, the Bourkes and other Normans
or acknowledged their overlordship. By the beginning of the fourteenth
century most of Munster was under English rule.
The War with Scotland and the Hundred Years War with France, in which the
Anglo-Irish barons had to aid their Sovereign, gave the Irish Chiefs from
North to South an opportunity to recover their lost possessions; the
invasion of Edward Bruce about 1320, and the risings of the O'Briens of
Thomond,1 the hereditary kings of North Munster, of MacMurrough of Leinster
and O'Neil in Ulster reduced the Anglo-Norman possessions outside the Pale
to very narrow limits.
It was at this time that Edward III created Butler of Ormond and Fitzgerald
of Desmond, the two great Anglo-Norman magnates of Munster, Earls of Ormond1
and Desmond,1 hoping doubtless that this would strengthen them in resisting
the Irish movement. Thenceforward, for three centuries, with few intervals,
the political situation, especially in Munster, was much influenced by the
rivalry between the two earls, which reflected the two divergent Irish
policies. Ormond remained steadily on the side of the English Crown. The
Desmonds, including the Earls of Kildare, impatient of control, and
supported by most of the irish clans within their wide sphere of influence,
generally followed a pro-Irish policy; and as the Tudor monarchs endeavoured
to establish control, frequently rose in rebellion, looking not only to the
Irish but to France and Spain for aid against the Crown. Thus it was
important for both Ormond and Desmond to strengthen their position by
marriage and other ties with the adjoining Irish Chiefs, and the records of
the Kilnamanagh Sept show how early the process of fusion by marriage
between the two races began. From A.D. 1100 to A.D. 1250 the Kilnamanagh
Chiefs married daughters of O'Brien of Thomond, O'Kennedy of Ormond, O'
Carroll of Ely; thereforward to Cromwell's time they married into the Butler
families (Ormond and Dunboyne) five times, into the Bourke family four
times, into the Desmond family twice, and only twice into the old Irish
families, MacCarthy of Desmond and O'Carroll of Ely. Similarly, the Norman
barons inter-married with the Irish families; and this fusion led to their
gradual adoption of Irish customs and Irish ways, to their becoming tribal
Chiefs rather than feudal Barons, a process of "degeneration" which the
Plantagenet and first Tudor monarchs vainly endeavoured to check by a series
of drastic statutes.

1 Thomond = North Munster (Clare) N. of the Shannon.
Desmond = South Munster.
Ormond = East Munster."




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