warfare

warfare in Gaelic society was on a small scale. The local battles of early Christian Ireland were waged by freemen whose landownership entailed military service to their kings, and who could be reinforced by pagan warrior‐bands or fianna. After the Viking invasions and still more in post‐Norman times there was an increasing use of mercenary troops, the cult warbands of the fianna giving way to paid bands of ceithearnaigh, or kerns, though the methods employed changed little before the 16th century. An anonymous writer c.1515 calculated that the largest chieftaincy could field no more than 2,000 men (500 mounted spearmen, 500 gallowglasses and 1,000 kerns) besides the irregular troops of armed subjects; the norm was 200 spearmen and 600 kerns, with the smallest districts furnishing perhaps 40 spearmen and 200 or 300 kerns. This reflected not only low population levels, but lack of financial resources in a rural, subsistence economy. Large imported warhorses, for instance, were unaffordable, and Irish cavalrymen used the small domestic breed. Technology was also primitive. In particular large‐scale foundries seem to have been lacking, so that home‐produced armour and weapons ran to chain mail rather than plate armour, and handguns rather than cannon. Fourteenth‐century statutes forbade Anglo‐Irish to supply armour, weapons, or horses to the Gaelic Irish at any time, though this was often violated. At the same time the rough terrain and poor communications made the reduction of little independent chieftainships difficult for the crown forces, and the small stone tower houses of the 15th to early 17th centuries retained their defensive function long after cannon made private castles obsolete in England.

Some major battles are recorded, as when Brian MacMahon (Mac Mathghamhna) defeated the English of Co. Louth in 1346, killing at least 300 of his enemies—a figure confirmed by the kerns' custom, inherited from the warrior cults of earlier times, of decapitating the slain and counting the heads. However, most Irish chiefs used harrying and plundering, raiding at dawn, burning houses and crops, rounding up and driving off cattle, to gain control over additional subjects, or increase their political influence. Fighting took place as the pursuing force (tóir)' caught up with the plunderers (creach), when the chief himself and his relatives defended the rear, while the light‐armed kerns were chiefly employed in driving cattle. If warning was received, the raiders might have to pursue a band of refugees and cattle, the imirce, protectively surrounded by their spearmen and gallowglasses. The booty gained in such raids was quickly shared out among military followers, with shares to the church and the poets. With the possible exception of the Irish of Wicklow, the chiefs' profit from these raids lay not in the booty itself, but rather in gaining added territory, and enforcing tribute or black rent from victims who feared a repetition.

Bibliography

Bartlett, T., and Jeffery, K. (eds.), A Military History of Ireland (1996)
Hayes‐McCoy, G. A. , Irish Battles (1969)
Simms, K. , Warfare in the Medieval Gaelic Lordships, Irish Sword, 12 (1975)

Katharine Simms