Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Irish

Thinking you’ll really enjoy it. The central character was made for the part. Comeuppances and thorough revenge are a large part of the story.

Not being intentionally dense at all, merely pointing out that Ireland was as about as potentially lucrative to an invader as anywhere else.

Here's other possibilities as to why Ireland's Celtic way of doing things persisted almost into the modern era.

#1) The Irish Sea. The English Channel saved England many times, most recently in 1940 There was yet a second moat in the way to get to Ireland.

#2) To refer back to that Medieval Warfare book for a second: One thing it itemizes is the enormous cost of sending armies from England to France, said costs raised by taxation.

Wait a minute, to levy taxation you had to have a legion of literate tax collectors, accountants, security guards, a whole stable taxation infrastructure in place. Equally to be taxed you had to have stable and known tenants, established on the land, paying taxes for generation after generation. In short, tho we think of people of the Middle Ages as weird unwashed folks who dressed funny, what you had to have in England is an established COUNTRY, still in place generation after generation, mostly irrespective of which faction of nobility is calling themselves King.

1066 was the last time England was successfully invaded, by William the Bastard (he prob'ly preferred "the Conquerer" ). He invades a nation of close to two million Saxons et al. with just 10,000 men, beats King Harald by a fluke, and this changes English history.

First thing is, after beating a few more local forces this French-speaking intruder gets himself crowned King of ENGLAND, implying there already was an England to be King of, complete with the aforementioned existing infrastructure. In fact almost the first thing William I does is compile the famous Domesday Book, essentially an updated tax roll of the whole country.

I dunno exactly how many times Ireland was invaded over the centuries, but I'd guess at least one of those invasion forces numbered as many as 10,000 men, and Ireland's population prob'ly always less than a million.

But when guys did invade and set up shop was there a functioning "Kingdom of Ireland" to take over? All set and ready to go? Nope, relative anarchy, between eternally warring minor "kingdoms". Like herding cats.

The Vikings came and went, never really getting a foothold beyond the ports. The Normans established the Pale, a small holding around Dublin where English custom and law was imposed, meanwhile everything else was chaos as usual, as was said... "beyond the Pale". Eventually Ireland creeped back in, the Normans all went native and hence we get all those Fitzgeralds and Fitzsimmons as Irish surnames.

It took actually displacing the Irish across most of Ireland by force, and bringing in your own people in the form of the Lowland Scots to provide local manpower to get the conquering done.

Just a theory.

lol

That means they didn't have much gold and silver.

Look, no country has resources that the rest of the world needs. But quite a few have resources that other countries want. And Irelands one of the richer countries in the region as far as what others wanted. That's why they WERE invaded and held as share croppers in their own land for 1000 years prior to 1921. I have no romantic anything about Ireland or any other country over there. Just disagreeing with your statement that they had nothing of value and that's why 'they weren't invaded'.

My wife and I went with a group to Ireland last May. Everyone of us, and others I have talked to since who have been there, would go back in a heartbeat. For the most part great people and so friendly. Like you said the history is right there for you to see. An ancestor immigrated from their to Canada in the 1820s as I recall. Then to MN. So it was very interesting to see where part of me came from.

There is an island village there that was looking for expats and Irish descendent to move there since there village population is dwindling. Everyone of us thought about it. Sadly no elk or gun rights.

Never said they weren't invaded. I said they weren't subjugated and brought into the fold.

You did not put forth the following statement, but I have read it and heard it many times before. On this very site in fact, is that the Irish were so badass nobody could conquer them. It's a laughable position is all. When it became useful, Britain invaded and made them their bitch. Had the resources been worth it the Romans, and later the Anglo-Saxons would've done the same. A lot of that is of course geographic location, and they were left to their own devices largely because of the remote location in addition to the other points I made prior.

Forgive me for paring down your post to these couple sentences. The first is patently false. Had it been as lucrative as Britain it would have been taken. Period. If your contention is that it was, then why wasn't it taken? Because it wasn't worth it. Yes herding cats is a good analogy, but it's not as if they were cats that were any more dangerous than others that were brought to heel. In fact the numbers you site would argue otherwise.

You are over simplifying the whole 1066 timeline. It's a FASCINATING year full of events that shaped our modern world. Would love to visit on it further, but it's beautiful out and I got the forge going.

I love a good argument that is bereft of insults and poo slinging.

Imperial Rome wisely adapted and took on a range of
Foreign skill military forces, Batavian cavalry,
Germanic cavalry etc, as auxiliaries,mercenaries,
and/or as allied client Kingdom forces.

Batavian Aux. cav. was highly valued by Rome as were
Germanic cav..for elite strike force applications.
Emperors even selecting such germanics as personal
security alongside the Praetorian Guard.... in fact when
the corrupt Praetorian killed an emperor, it was the
German bodyguard group that remained fiercely loyal
and avenged such actions.

Now the Romans found the task of conquering the
wild more unregulated germania tribes more difficult
- requiring too much risk and effort for little gain,
but still extracted some selective uses for them.

If Hibernians had anything good to offer in that regard
I'd imagine Romans would have pressed them into
service one way or another.

Halfwit myth-folklore means a lot to some.
Hibernians were nothing much more
than oportunistic inbred inter-tribal rival brigants.

Roman military campaigns revolved around
harvest seasons in enemy territory...
Eg: CAESAR timed such to be able to feed his army in the field
in his Gallic wars...Caesar and Vercingetorix both used
scorched earth policies to try and cripple each other's forces
through lack of grain.
Caesars ventures into Germania were limited in part
due fact that Germanic tribes east of Rhine, were not
big on agriculture.

Armies do not march or fight very well on empty
stomachs.... did the Hibernians have extensive
agriculture and large stores of grain that Romans
could sieze?

The daily tonnage of grain needed to feed a number
of Legions, Auxilaries, non~combatant camp helpers,
Fodder for several thousand horse and mules, etc.
was a huge logistic if you had to drag/supply it all yourself.
and it became harder if it all had to be carted overland
without roads and much harder again if there were no
suitably located rivers for bulk shipment to logistical
locations.

In regards to Roman Empire conquests that
is simply not true, since more wealthy and
established regions of the empire payed for
expensive campaigns into other areas with
little or no real financial reward or a net loss
for the coffers of Rome.

Hadrian drew the line at the Rhine and Tiberius allowed Germanicus
a few campaigns over the Rhine, but finally said no more due to there
being no gains for Rome...seems the efforts of Germanicus were
more about avenging Varus/ lost legions of 9 A.D.
and having destroyed Arminius forces and razed
everything German for 50 miles around and recovering
two legionary standards, it seems his task was accomplished.


Also the driving forces/agendas for Roman campaigns
were different in the Republic with personally competitive
Triumvirate arrangements (like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus)
vs the new Imperial system under an Emperor.

Caesar briefly invaded Britannia twice for his own
reasons (and he operated in Gaul for a combination
of his own reasons and the requirement of the senate
to defend Gallic allies).. but left Britannia behind cause
he had higher priorities in Gaul.

EARLIER in the piece, Rome was not much interested in
the bulk of Gaul, but got involved to protect its land trade
routes to colonies in Iberia, which were being threatened
by Gauls that were raiding Greek trading posts...
And together with the fact Rome had an allied
contract with the Greeks, so came to their defence.

After that, ambitious Republic Romans saw military
campaigns in Gaul, Germania and Britannia as means
of advancing their political careers.

The Roman people loved and celebrated winners..
when Caesar defeated Vercingetorix at Alesia,
Roman senate declared 20 days of thanksgiving.
Even when Caesar crossed the Rhine for only
18 days to burn down villages and destroy food
stores of Germanic tribes and not really engage in combat,
(since Germanics fled and hid in the forest)
He still got a great reception in Rome for his
Pioneering efforts..

You are correct, She did very well, and She is a delight to be around. miles

Thankyousir.

Tks for the info Starman.

OK, so its down to the Italians vs. the Mongols with the Vikings as possible runner up for the title of baddest boys on the block.

Meanwhile back to the 'grasping inbred clans' of Ireland......

A hundred years after taking England the Normans, after being sorta checkmated by the indigenous Welsh, are invited into Ireland and initially cut a wide swathe, like a hot knife through butter, construct a bunch of castles, but then stall out and over time, become Irish. Irish language and law creeping back into Norman areas. Its gonna be 300 years between the Normans and the time when the Tudors get serious about Ireland.

The Irish meanwhile remain stubbornly tribal, and individualistic, fighting barefoot, and with spears. Clearly a different mindset. From Wiki we get Irish Kerns operating in France during the 100 years war, of "ferocious reputation", riding bareback and taking the severed heads of their opponents.

Braveheart is fiction very loosely based on fact of course, I do believe they got the mindset about right tho, worth noting that most of the filming and almost all the "Scots" in the battle scenes were Irish, along with the bagpipes in thhe soundtrack




"Sigh", now I suppose I'm obliged to wade into the morass that is Irish history.

Romans were not really bad unless you defied them
or betrayed them.., even then Rome may still extend
an olive branch [to some extent] if they still valued
you enough, as they did with the germanic Areovistus
and the allied Gallic Aedui who at one point went
with the gallic revolt, which Rome forgave them
(but not others) for....but If you had no value to them
and pissed them off, every living soul in one's tribe
could be obliterated in extreme cases.

Submitting to the Roman system could be very beneficial
for some tribes and clans as a number of Spanish, Britannic,
Gallic, Germanics, etc, discovered.

Just think, you could become a powerful client king
of Rome, or be a mercenary force with the Romans,
or part of auxiliary forces attached to legions.
any or all of that could really help you get it over
your traditional rival clans/tribes.

IF you allied with Rome it was in their interests to
also protect you and their interests..thus you could
have Roman legions intervening to deal with large
powerful rival or invading tribes that you could not
handle alone... Some Gauls were real glad to have
Rome drive back large masses of uninvited Germanics.

Even within the brief time Caesar was in Britain,
Some tribes that had had enough of a tyrant leader
in charge of banded together tribes, started assisting
Caesar... Natives allying with or assisting Romans
happened in every region of the empire, I suspect some
barefoot Hibernians would have taken the same options
had Rome set foot there with plans to stay.

Seriously bummed out here, can't find my Bayeux Tapestry pics, that seriously long (100ft?) work of art commissioned by William hisself to document and justify his victory.

Still got the other photos in the series, including Bayeux Cathedral, which survived June of 1944 intact by some miracle...



Seeing the Bayeux Tapestry was an uber bucket list item since I was a kid in England, heck I remember the 900 year anniversary. Here's a small section lifted from the 'net.



Note the overhand thing they got going on with them javelins and spears at that time, so maybe the Irish weren't quite so out of date after all.

Sorta related, having seen the Bayeux Cathedral I passed up on stopping in at Salisbury Cathedral the following week, I mean, seen one magnificent Gothic cathedral seen 'em all, just rode right on by........



Came to find out later they have an ORIGINAL COPY OF THE FRIGGIN' MAGNA CARTA in that church, and I rode right on by.....

But.... I did find the spot at Bosworth Field where Richard III bought the farm, after coming within a sword's length of taking out Henry Tudor after that magnificent charge right before being betrayed by the Stanleys. There it is, that low spot that was a mire 535 years ago where his horse bogged down, right on the other side of that intersection.




Meanwhile, up in the north of England, earlier on that same trip, a section of prob'ly the oldest surviving wall ever commissioned by a flaming homosexual....

Looking east, Scotland to the left......

The Limes Germanicus defence was comissioned
much earlier by Augustus and dwarfed the Antonine
and Hadrian walls in length... When Hadrian came
along he also commissioned work on the Limes.

Orig. plans for Hadrians were that sections would
be stone and others earth rampart with ditch,.. then
with time they got carried away and it became an
Enormous resource/cost blowout project.
.. and plans further changed along the way where
stone walls orig. to be 3 meters were reduced to being
built at 2 meters.

Hadrians wall also had fort locations miles out to the
north and south of it, cause real threats still existed
within its boundary, but you gotta sensibly draw the line
somewhere?... when you want to consolidate and
manage your territorial gains.

My people (the Murrays) are from County Cavan.

I like beer as much as the next man.




P

Some distance east of there, maybe 15-20 miles southwest of Tobermore. Took this pic while cycling across the Sperrin Mountains (really "uplands"), prettiest place I saw in Ulster. Dunno what the shelter was for, school bus?

Turns out that during the war for Independence the Sperrins were a Republican stronghold. Ya gotta look at things on their scale, over here 15-20 miles is/was nothing, over there 15 - 20 miles was a long way, as it was to me growing up over in England.

Typical Irish weather; right before this I had been riding into heavy rain and a brutal headwind all day.

Wow, that's a beautiful place. My people were supposedly centered around Dromore and Ballycross, small towns near Belfast I think. Were you ever in that area?

Egad Sir, I own ya an apology..... this is where I crossed into the Republic, the village of Swalinbar, County Cavan, under the EU no Border checks at all anymore. I had my passport handy and everything, didn't need it, wasn't even sure I had crossed into the Republic until I asked right there in town, which I gather is now pretty much a bedroom community for folks that work across the Border in Eniskillen....





No offense intended, but much of the interior of Ireland that I saw was sorta nondescript. It is glaciated terrain, drumlin country, to that end it reminded me very much of parts of Upstate New York. I had come that morning from a late breakfast in Irvinestown on the far side of Lough Earne and was pushing hard to make the final thirty miles to Carrick-on-Shannon. So that afternoon heading SSW down through County Cavan I only stopped to take photos here.... a peat cutting..... from a bog behind the trees....




Turns out in Ireland they get all nostalgic about peat, and go out of their way to burn it on purpose when they want to get back to their roots, they even sell it outside of convenience store the same way we do firewood.....

You can tell who's burning it because it makes a yellow smoke.




And Holy Crap! I just realized something, back in Ulster, first day I came in, far northeast corner at Ballycastle, serious Prod territory, when THEY wanna get all nostalgic they burn COAL. I thought this was so odd when I first saw it I took a picture.

When I was a little kid in England we heated our whole house from the living room fireplace, had no hot water unless we had a fire, everybody burned coal, we even lived right next to the railyard where even in the 60's lots of trains STILL burned coal (ah, the Luddite glory of Government regulation combined with Union labor ). Us kids got filthy playing on piles of coal and grimy vacant steam engines. The scent of coal smoke takes me right back, but I dunno I'd go out of my way to burn it again.

Anyhoo... in that photo they also sell kindling to get the coal started, a sign of the times or maybe the location, back in the old days we used newspaper as kindling of course like everybody else, the newspaper we didn't use to wrap the fish and chips in our shop that is.




...and while I'm at it a bit more cultural realization, ain't no kindling alongside that peat, maybe because in the Republic they're still all about newspapers, cell phones notwithstanding, newspapers full of eloquent, opinionated, lengthy editorials all about most everything.....






Plainly, news from American sends 'em into a tizzy, us being so violent and all......