Munster

Munster was ruled by the Eóganacht dynasty from the 7th to the mid-10th cent., who were then overshadowed by Dál Cais, to whom Brian Boru (d. 1014) belonged. By the 12th cent. Brian's descendants, the O'Briens, were ruling north Munster (Thomond) from their capital at Limerick, while the main branch of the Eóganacht, the MacCarthys, were ruling south Munster (Desmond) from Cork. The province was directly affected by the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169 which saw widespread colonization, the O'Briens and MacCarthys being confined in the far west. Munster was gradually shired in the 13th cent., and was dominated by powerful Anglo-Irish families such as the Poers (in Waterford), Barrys, Roches (in Cork), the Butler earls of Ormond (Tipperary), and the Geraldine earls of Desmond (north Kerry and Limerick), who became increasingly integrated into Irish society. The establishment of the presidency of Munster in 1570 helped restore English government there, but a Desmond revolt in 1579 led to its plantation by English protestant settlers, and the defeat of the Irish forces at the battle of Kinsale in 1601 meant the collapse of the Gaelic ascendancy throughout Ireland. The 18th cent. was marked by agrarian disturbances, especially those by the ‘Whiteboys’, while Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary, was the scene of a futile rebellion by the Young Irelanders during the Great Famine in 1848. Munster was the focus of much of the guerrilla warfare that characterized the War of Independence, 1919–21.

Sean Duffy