(If you only knew) The Half of It

By KJ Keegan

Speculation ran rampant within the family as to whether or not my grandfather, Richard Feeney, had been a member of the Irish Republication Brotherhood, prior to immigrating to the United States in 1908. Throw in some alleged gunrunning activity for Clan na Gael, the IRB's American counterpart, upon his arrival in New York and this hardly fit the image of the kindly old man everyone loved and admired. Then again, that talk could have all been a bunch of blarney and he simply came to America to seek a better life for his wife and family.

My mother, Beatrice Feeney Keegan, was little help in shedding light on the matter. She refused to talk about it, or anything controversial pertaining to Ireland, except on very rare occasions when, inexplicably, the venom would spew forth from the mouth of this otherwise-devout Catholic woman. Her rants were directed squarely at the English and the unspeakable things they had done to the poor Irish over the centuries, always concluding with the line, "If you only knew the half of it."

There is obviously much more to Ireland's history than the potato blight, the diaspora, numerous uprisings, and a bunch of bloody Sundays. When my grandfather's trove of books about Ireland came into my possession, they sparked in me a quest to learn all I could about the country of my ancestors and to tell the side of Ireland's history that many people have never heard. Well, at least the half to which my mother alluded, and quite possibly, a fraction or two more

• Language: English
• Publisher: KJ Keegan
• Release date: Sep 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310738975

KJ Keegan

KJ Keegan is a lifelong New Yorker, currently residing in Huntington, Long Island. Graduate of St. John's University, former accountant and entrepreneur. At present, is posing as an investigative historian and writer delving into regional and sectarian conflicts and the reasons behind them. A second generation Irish American, "(If you only knew) The Half of It" represents a first time foray into this field.

Book preview

Faith and Infidels

There is an old Irish saying that goes like this: If wars were fought with words, Ireland would rule the world. To be sure, Ireland has been blessed with its fair share of literary greatness and superb writers and poets. Sadly for Ireland though, wars are not fought with words. Neither are uprisings, revolts, insurrections, nor insurgencies. No, wars are fought with armies and navies and the money to support them. As gifted as the Irish were as authors and orators, they were never going to simply talk their way out of occupation or script a bloodless end to their oppression. Wordsmiths are all well and good, but in a practical sense, Ireland was always more in need of blacksmiths, gunsmiths, or any other smiths, provided they could fashion weapons and use them. However, even had they been armed to the teeth, it was unlikely the fates and fortunes of the Irish would have been materially different. Forget about ruling the world; history would show that the Irish were not very good at ruling their own country. Resistance and rebellion were about all the Irish could ever muster up, century upon century, after the first of the uninvited guests arrived. Fortunately, and rather significantly, they had first found faith. God knows, they were going to need it.

Prior to mid-fifth century AD, the majority of the inhabitants of Ireland were Celtic heathens. Much of their fighting amongst themselves was over what most men fight about: property, women, or some perceived slight to one’s sense of honor. The entrenched powers rested in the hands of regional tribal leaders and a priestly class of druid sorcerers. Life in Ireland was about to change forever with the arrival of a holy man named Patrick and his fellow missionaries. They were selling the Catholic faith and the locals started buying it, in numbers unimaginable at the time. Whatever resistance there was to upsetting the status quo was quickly overcome by these agents of God. Apparently, all the druid spells and incantations conjured up and cast at these missionary interlopers were not enough to stave off the inevitable. In just over a decade, nearly all the island’s inhabitants came to embrace the Catholic religion. This accomplishment alone should have qualified Patrick for sainthood - and most likely was a notable consideration in his favor. Undoubtedly, so many converts in such a short period of time might suggest it was indeed a miracle. Nevertheless, it just did not seem quite miraculous enough for the sake of a good Irish yarn. No, driving all the snakes from Ireland into the surrounding waters was a far more compelling narrative. That was along the lines of Moses parting the Red Sea or Joshua blowing his rams horn and bringing down the walls of Jericho. It could be seen as something epic and biblical in scope, and just the kind of story the Irish became so fond of telling and re-telling. Whether or not there were ever any snakes in Ireland to begin with is, of course, debatable. The mere fact that no bones or fossils of these slithering reptiles have ever been found is beside the point. Snakes have never enjoyed a good reputation in the animal kingdom going all the way back to the beginning of the Book of Genesis. In fact, the very fate of all humankind was sealed when Eve was tricked by a serpent into taking a bite of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. If everything in the Bible is the word of God, then one must be willing to gloss over the fact that this was not your typical garden-variety snake; it was a talking one. However, this is just an inconsequential matter when compared to the all-important moral of the story concerning temptation and paradise lost. Some things are meant to be accepted strictly on the basis of faith and so it is, or should be, with legends. The longstanding belief in Ireland is that St. Patrick did, in fact, rid the island nation of all its snakes. That is, all of the types that existed at that time. A two-legged variety, which would subsequently slither and slide onto Ireland’s shores, would prove to be far more difficult to eradicate.

There was one unintended consequence to the wholesale conversion of the populace of Ireland to the Catholic religion. Over time, the early inhabitants of this once-obscure island of heathens and idolaters developed quite a fondness for music, dancing, drinking, fighting, bawdy storytelling, and other licentious behavior that obviously ran completely counter to the teachings of the Catholic faith. It became a challenging task to square an obvious lust for life with toeing the straight and narrow path towards eternal salvation. A commandment or two was going to be broken along the way and a good confession was going to be in order, especially for many an Irishman. The women of Ireland seemed a bit more insulated from this sea of temptation seemingly everywhere, but no one was totally immune. The penance prescribed for most of these transgressions would be the requisite number of Our Fathers and Hail Marys, and there would always be a stern admonition by the priest to avoid these sins in the future. Then, something profoundly changed in the collective conscience of the Irish. It was guilt. Irish Catholic guilt, borne of the longing to try always to do God’s will while constantly battling the desires of the flesh. As if succumbing to temptation itself wasn’t enough, many a poor soul began to feel a sense of shame merely thinking about some sinful transgression that they hadn’t even gotten around to doing yet. Thus, a juggling act for the Irish began in earnest. An innate joy of living was tempered by an equally strong desire to be ever-faithful servants of God. However, if guilt somehow spawned character and faith forged fortitude, the Irish were truly blessed. In the not-too-distant future, their very survival would require these traits… and then some.

After St. Patrick’s death, Ireland enjoyed a golden age that lasted nearly three and a half centuries. Much of that time coincided with the so-called Dark Ages that purportedly began with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD. Either the distance was too great or it was deemed not worth the effort, but the Visigoths, Vandals, and the rest of those Germanic barbarian hordes decided to leave Ireland alone. Therefore, while the rest of Europe was plunged into a social, economic, and intellectual morass, Ireland thrived. Three distinct classes emerged during this period: provincial kings, lords, and commoners. Shepherding this flock, of course, was the Catholic clergy. Churches and monasteries sprung up throughout the Emerald Isle and in many cases, became the focal point of the community. Commoners could own their own land, enjoyed legal rights, and had the protection of their respective lords and kings. Of course, this came at a price. Taxes had to be paid to the provincial king, and the lord of the manor would take a share of the crops or livestock. The Catholic Church owned vast tracts of land where the churches and monasteries were built and received tithes and other contributions from the faithful. Unfortunately, land, power, and money make for powerful temptations and it was not uncommon to see rather worldly and wealthy bishops and monks about the towns and villages. If Ireland was enjoying a relative period of peace and prosperity, there apparently was no need to begrudge anyone the benefit of it.

Unbeknownst to the Irish, their pastoral existence was about to end abruptly by the end of the 8th century. In the lands to the north, known as Scandinavia, a new group of barbarians were about to unleash their brand of terror upon parts of Europe. They were known as Norsemen, which literally meant North Men. While the term Norsemen accurately described where they came from, it was a secondary name that more descriptively defined their activities. They were the Vikings, which, roughly translated, meant adventurers, raiders, or plunderers. The exact meaning was irrelevant; the cold, hard fact was that no one was going to confuse them with missionaries. They were about to end their isolation in the lands to the north and it coincided with their perfecting of two much-needed articles of warfare to successfully launch this campaign.

The Vikings had a long history of seafaring, but their ambitious plans for plundering and pillaging remote countries accessible only by sea called for larger boats. Their answer was the so-called Viking longboat. This seaworthy craft typically had a large mainsail and twenty to thirty sets of oars for when the seas grew calm. It also was constructed with a shallow draft that enabled it to come right up to the shoreline. Barbarians or not, the Vikings were more than able seamen capable of navigating the treacherous North Sea and Atlantic Ocean with just the aid of the sun and the stars. The Viking longboat was also recognizable by its large, upswept bow that tended to look like the head of a dragon or sea serpent. Whether or not the Vikings intended this to instill further fear in the hearts of those on shore, it had the effect nonetheless.

With the issue of travel solved, the Vikings turned their attention to weaponry. In Scandinavia, at that time, all free men were bound by law to possess arms. In fact, many even worshipped their weapons and, in a strange sense, were sentimentally attached to them. In this culture, when it came to affection, apparently wives, children, and dogs came in a distant second. The most sacred of all weapons was the sword, and the Vikings possessed the most advanced one ever forged: the Ulfberht. Swords, in fact, had been around for thousands of years going all the way back to the Bronze Age. That is when the early metallurgists combined copper and tin and came up with a substance harder and more durable than brass. Ancient blacksmiths could then fashion this new alloy, bronze, into swords. It soon became the weapon of choice for the armies of antiquity. Throughout the ages, mortal combat came down to two opposing soldiers, each armed with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. The problem was that in battle, swords often became nicked and dull. They could subsequently get stuck in an enemy combatant’s shield or worse yet, break into pieces. It would only stand to reason that if either of those events occurred, a soldier’s odds of leaving the battlefield alive decreased dramatically. The relative strength of swords increased again with the introduction of iron and steel. Impurities found in steel during the forging process, however, still rendered the sword prone to the same problems of brittleness and dullness. The Vikings finally got it right with their Ulfberht, or Viking sword. They heated the iron ore to incredibly high temperatures in a crucible, eliminating most of the impurities from it in the process. This sword was incredibly strong, yet flexible and durable. The Ulfberht was not going to break in battle or get stuck in a shield or some poor soul’s ribcage. This weapon was to tip the balance of power to the hand that wielded it. Not every Viking could afford the Ulfberht and so many of the rank-and-file soldiers were simply armed with spears, battle-axes, or clubs. Regardless of which weapon they carried into battle, they were quite good at delivering the business end of it to anyone who stood in their way. Longboats and swords were the physical tools required for the Vikings to commence their raiding, but it was the Norse ideology that made them so fierce and formidable.

The Vikings were warriors who, paradoxically, lived to die in battle with a sword in their hand. Upon a glorious death on the battlefield, they would travel to Valhalla, or hall of the slain. This hall was depicted as an immense room filled with fellow slain Vikings and presided over by the god Odin. It would feature a never-ending feast of venison and wine served by some comely maidens. They would regale themselves, ad nauseam, with tales of their bravery and heroic deeds. What Viking wouldn’t want to go to war with this as his eternal reward for dying on the battlefield? A more sobering question was who in their right mind would want to fight someone so willing to die in mortal combat? Naturally, there were few, if any, volunteers.

In 795 AD, the Vikings launched their first raid against Ireland. They sacked and burned the monastery on Rathlin Island, just six miles off the coast of the northernmost part of the country. Armed with only crosses and their faith, the poor monks never stood a chance. They were quickly overpowered and either killed or taken back to Scandinavia as slaves. This was as extreme a clash of cultures and ideologies as anyone could ever have imagined. As Catholics and ordained men of God, the monks embodied the Christian paradox to the idea of death and the afterlife. That is, everyone wants to go to Heaven someday, but no one wants to die to get there. As easily as the monks were subdued and taken prisoner, it was obvious that the Vikings did not sail hundreds of miles for a handful of religious slaves to take back with them. The limited space in their boats was better filled with plunder in the form of gold, silver, artifacts, or any other thing that seemed valuable and worth carting away. As the Vikings quickly found out, churches and monasteries were the best places to raid. The faithful flock of Irish Catholic commoners dutifully tithed a portion of what they produced to the church. If times were good, some churches or monasteries accumulated far more wealth than they could ever possibly need. This embarrassment of riches suddenly became a distinct liability. Language proved no barrier to the Vikings; just a few learned Gaelic words or phrases and a sword put to some poor soul’s throat was all that was required to loosen tongues. The Vikings could be very persuasive when it came to eliciting the whereabouts of the nearest house of God. Villages and towns were by no means immune from attack. Spoils were spoils regardless of the source and besides, there were supposedly no women to be found in the churches or monasteries. The Vikings were no choirboys and many fair Celtic women were ravished by these devils before being released or carted away to be sold as slaves. Since the Irish could not muster any organized defense, the only thing limiting the scope of the early Viking forays were the proximity of their targets to the coast. The raids tended to be random and of the quick hit-and-run variety, utilizing just a few boats and the required number of men to sail them. Soon, not a summer’s day went by that did not see everyone living along the Irish coast casting a wary eye towards the distant horizon. Fortunately, the winters proved too cold and the waters too rough to be out on the North Sea, even for these hearty mariners. Since the crops in their native lands needed to be planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, that left just the summer months for raiding. For that, the Irish got down on their knees and thanked God for the need to be vigilant for just three or four months a year, instead of all twelve. If the Almighty did not see fit to rain fire and brimstone down upon the towns and villages of this Nordic scourge, then this small divine favor would have to suffice.

For the next two decades, the Vikings kept to the script that worked so well for them. Then their tactics changed dramatically. The handful of ships and relatively small number of raiders attacking the Irish coast became fifty or more boats at a time manned with thousands of Norse warriors. Encampments were established and the raiding parties could now venture further inland and plunder more distant towns and monasteries. Their ill-gotten riches could then be stockpiled at their base camps and the frequent and dangerous voyages back and forth between Ireland and Scandinavia became unnecessary. Unfortunately, for the Irish, the Vikings seemed to take a liking to their new surroundings. A good climate, decent supply of food and booty, and captive slaves to serve them were hardly compelling reasons to leave anytime soon. Besides, the futile resistance offered by the hapless high Irish kings was not exactly showing them the door.

Finally, in 845 AD, the tide began to turn in favor of the Irish. King Malachy defeated the Vikings and their notorious King Turgesius, who was drowned for good measure and denied the traditional Norse funeral . Then in 847 AD, the Irish King Cearbhall of Ossory defeated a Viking force of well over one thousand men. The good fortune of the Irish in battle continued in 849 AD, when King Malachy again defeated them, this time in their Dublin fortress. Whether or not the mighty Vikings had gone soft was debatable, but nevertheless, their once fearsome and invincible reputation was left in tatters. The Valkyries, the maidens of Odin who escorted the souls of the valiant dead to Valhalla, had suddenly become a bit winded and fatigued. Even the monks living in the vulnerable coastal monasteries began to foil these Nordic no goods. On church property, they erected tall stone towers known as round towers due to their cylindrical shape. Each floor had a trap door that was only accessible by a tall wooden ladder. When the Vikings were spotted off in the distance, the monks grabbed as many religious artifacts and other valuables as they could and scrambled into the tower. They then proceeded to climb each floor, pulling up the ladder as they went along, until they had gotten to the top and were safely beyond the reach of these heathens. The Vikings were resigned to plundering what little of value remained on the grounds, while the monks had preserved their sacred belongings and more importantly, their own lives. They further frustrated these raiders by crafting what became known as the High Cross. It was carved from stone and depicted various scenes from the Bible. This proved helpful in teaching their largely illiterate congregants by way of illustration. More importantly, these stone crosses were so massive and heavy that not even a determined army of Vikings could cart them away or even knock them over. It seemed the wily monks had outfoxed them at every turn. These emissaries of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob prevailed over these pagans. In the process, they relegated Odin and the rest of the Nordic gods to mythological irrelevancy, where they rightly belonged. By 851 AD, the first wave of Viking raids on Ireland had come to an end. Most of the remaining Norsemen fled to England and the next half-century saw the raids become less and less frequent, but unfortunately for the Irish, the next generation of Vikings was no more inclined to be pacifists than the preceding one.

The brief respite ended in 914 AD when a large fleet of Viking ships appeared in the harbor of Waterford. The Irish settlement there was quickly recaptured and the misery was about to start all over again. This clearly was not the second coming for which the Irish Catholics had been praying. Instead of the Messiah, it was their old nemeses from the north. The next year, a second fleet arrived and the reinforced, and emboldened, Norsemen left their coastal stronghold and raided the Provinces of Munster and Leinster, meeting little, if any, resistance. Then in 917 AD, the Vikings retook Dublin. The next several years saw the expansion of their settlements along the eastern coast of Ireland. Once again, monasteries were sacked and plundered and a renewed sense of fear and unease pervaded the country. The Irish tried unsuccessfully to battle back. Their leader was the Irish High King Niall Glundubh, who united the chieftains from as many as twelve Irish clans. It was during this period of the second Viking invasion of Ireland that an unflattering characteristic of the Irish came to the forefront. If the opportunity for power, riches, or any other self-aggrandizing motive presented itself, certain Irishmen were more than willing to sell their souls to make a deal with the devil. In this case, some Irish kings and lords actually made alliances with the Vikings and attacked other Irish rulers who stood in their way. Suddenly, these 10th century iterations of Judas Iscariot made the ultimate defeat of the Vikings considerably more challenging. The Irish were not content to merely battle a common enemy, now they were willing to fight, and kill, their fellow countrymen. This reality became evident at the Battle of Kilmashogue on September 14, 919 AD, when King Niall Glundubh was killed and his army soundly defeated. The Norse forces, led by Sigtrygg Caech, were rumored to have been aided in this fight by a despicable band of Irish turncoats. That turned out to be a sad day for Ireland and proved, once and for all, that there existed within the country an element of backstabbing traitors simply masquerading as good Irish Catholics.

By 950 AD, the Vikings raids in Ireland were drawing to a close as they became content to be mostly traders and merchants, operating largely out of Dublin. Much of what they traded was produce, fish, and livestock that they raised themselves or bartered with the indigenous Irish to obtain. No longer were the goods sent back to Scandinavia expropriated from the local inhabitants. It was noteworthy that even the slaves they still dealt in were from other parts of the world. It was almost as if the Vikings were becoming domesticated, and in large part, they did start to assimilate into the native Irish population. This seemed to spawn the legend of why so many of the Irish possess the traits of red hair and blue eyes, though most in Ireland would not care to ascribe anything positive to the Vikings. The more likely a reason was the simple belief that God bestowed these characteristics upon them long before the Vikings ever came ashore. If anything, these Norsemen got the better of the occupation bargain because the Irish gave them their Catholic religion. For the next thirty years or so, life in Ireland evolved to a grudging acceptance of the Viking presence in return for a relative period of peace. Nevertheless, they remained an unwelcome party who had long overstayed their visit. Fortunately, there was someone in Ireland determined to see them finally go and willing to twist a few arms to make it happen.

Brian Boru was born sometime around 940 AD, to Cennetig mac Lorcain, the King of the region known as Tuadmumu. At that time in Ireland, there was no shortage of kings and kingdoms, estimated to number some one hundred and fifty or more. When his father died, Brian’s older brother, Mathgamain, assumed the throne and expanded the kingdom to the entire Province of Munster. Mathgamain proved to be an able leader and Brian loyally fought by his side and learned the tactics and maneuvers that would serve him well after Mathgamain was killed in 976 AD. At that point, Brian Boru became the ruler of the entire kingdom of Munster. He quickly consolidated his power in his home province and turned his sights on the neighboring Provinces of Leinster and Meath. This campaign lasted fifteen years, from 982 AD to 997AD, and was besieged with setback after setback for Boru. However, he learned something important from each defeat and soon devised a strategy that combined both naval and land forces. That would ultimately prove invaluable in his relentless desire to unite all of Ireland under his rule. Being an able military commander was one thing, but bringing to heel the entire country of Ireland was going to require cunning as well. Boru would form strategic alliances by paying tribute or bribes or even by using arranged marriages. This could mean his marriage to some rival leader’s daughter, or sometimes even marrying off one of his own daughters or sons. His children may not have been too keen on his choice of spouse, but they quietly obeyed nonetheless. Boru also got the Catholic Church solidly behind him, which proved to be a masterstroke on his part to get its stamp of approval on the legitimacy of his rule. All his maneuverings paid off when in the year 1002, Brian Boru became the High King of Ireland, the overlord of all the Irish.

Over the next twelve years, Boru consolidated his power over all the provincial rulers in Ireland. It wasn’t that he did not make any enemies along the way; he made plenty. He remained undeterred by plots and schemes hatched by petty chieftains and lords who wanted to overthrow him. His foremost desire was to drive the remaining Norsemen from their last stronghold in Dublin. Boru had initially attacked Dublin in 1013. He surrounded the city with his army, while simultaneously blockading the port with his navy. The plan was to starve the city’s inhabitants until they would have no choice but to surrender. The only problem with the idea was that Boru’s troops ran out of provisions first and ignominiously withdrew from the engagement. The next year, he returned to face the Norse ruler Sigtrygg Silkbeard once again. This time the strategy shifted away from another long siege of Dublin. Boru apparently decided the potential embarrassment and humiliation, once again, of not bringing enough food was too much to risk. Instead, the opposing forces met on Good Friday at Clontarf, on the coast north of Dublin. By now Brian Boru was getting on in years and since no exact date of his birth was ever found, was rumored to be anywhere from his early seventies to well over the age of eighty. Considering that most people of that time were lucky to live to forty, Boru must have been seen as the second coming of Methuselah. Clearly, he was too old to personally direct the battle, so that duty fell upon his sons, Murchad and Donnchad. The Battle of Clontarf was particularly fierce and lasted the better part of the day. In the end, the Norse forces were defeated, thus symbolically ending the Viking reign of terror over Ireland.

There was, however, a steep price to be paid for this historic victory. Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, was slain during the battle, although the exact nature of his death remains shrouded in mystery. It would seem a bit farfetched that a near octogenarian would have been leading his men into battle and engaging in hand-to-hand combat against the Viking forces. It was far more likely he was observing the battle as it unfolded at a safe distance from the front lines. Legend has it he was in his tent praying for God’s help when a small retreating detachment of Norsemen came upon the encampment. They quickly overpowered his guards and cut him down while he was still kneeling in prayer. Whatever the facts were, Brian Boru became immortalized as the man who ended the Vikings’ two hundred and twenty years of attacks against Ireland. The fact that his death occurred on a Good Friday, at the hands of pagans, while he was kneeling in prayer, would suggest that something in the realm of the divine had occurred. He may even have been viewed by some as a martyr in the cause of ridding Ireland of the Norse plague. Nevertheless, there apparently was never any serious consideration for his elevation to sainthood by the Catholic Church.

While it would appear on the surface that vanquishing the Vikings was a minor miracle, Brian Boru had too many skeletons in the closet. He didn’t get to unify all the kingdoms of Ireland under his rule by his personal charm alone. A few rules, and bones, were undoubtedly broken along the way. There was also the matter of his four marriages and some possibly unholy alliances made with other rulers and even the Catholic Church as well. Whether a saint or a sinner, Brian Boru became one of the first legendary figures in Irish history. As for the Vikings, after the Battle of Clontarf, their days of raiding and plundering Ireland were over. Some returned to Scandinavia but the majority remained in Ireland and were slowly absorbed into the population. For the better part of two centuries, they brought their version of the Dark Ages to Ireland’s shores and blackened its history in the process. They neither enriched Irish culture nor added anything positive to Ireland’s traditions, customs, or beliefs. All they left behind to show for their time in Ireland were widows, illegitimate children, and a legacy of misery for all who encountered them. Absent the Vikings, the Irish would have to be content with fighting amongst themselves for the next century and a half until the Normans arrived. Regrettably, for the Irish, their presence merely opened the door for an even more powerful force that would come to dominate Ireland for the next seven hundred years.

Chapter 2

No-Good Neighbor

Dermot MacMurrough was the provincial King of Leinster, but his tenuous grip on power slipped away when his protector and High King of Ireland, Muirchertach Mac Lochlainn, died in 1166. The new High King of Ireland, Rory O’Connor, led a force against MacMurrough and sent him into exile in Normandy. MacMurrough was not the type of man to take losing his kingdom lying down. He desperately sought the help of someone both powerful and ambitious enough to aid him in his cause. That person was King Henry II of England, who always had his eye on conquering Ireland, but constantly seemed too preoccupied with more pressing matters to actually act upon it. In fact, eleven years earlier, King Henry II was given the blessing of the Catholic Church to invade Ireland. Adrian IV, an English Cardinal, broke the Italian stranglehold on the papacy when he was elected pope in 1154. The following year he issued a papal bull, which is a proclamation issued by the reigning pontiff regarding a certain church policy. This particular papal bull granted the King of England permission to attack Ireland as a means of bringing the Irish Catholic Church directly under Vatican control.

It was now 1167, the year after MacMurrough’s ouster, when Henry II gave him permission to recruit the soldiers he needed to retake Leinster in return for an oath of fealty. Help often takes time and seldom comes free. It wasn’t until 1169 that MacMurrough raised the necessary number of Norman and Welsh troops to retake Leinster. Waterford and Dublin similarly came under his control as well. He also owed a debt of gratitude to an old ally for his support, the Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare. The Earl was better known by his nickname Strongbow, though it seemingly was more befitting of an American Indian chief than an Irish lord. MacMurrough repaid Strongbow by arranging the marriage of his daughter, Aoife, to him. Common to so many daughters of nobility, duty and obligation trumped love and romance. In return, like countless other brides in her situation, she got a groom nearly twice her age and thrice her size and very likely not the idealized version of her Prince Charming. This news did not sit well with King Henry II, who strongly opposed the idea of the Normans gaining a permanent foothold in Ireland. More to the point, he had the pope’s seal of approval to invade Ireland and finally align the Irish Catholic Church with its counterpart in England. On October 18, 1171, Henry II sailed into Waterford with a large fleet of ships and enough men to make his presence plainly known. This ominously marked the first time an English king ever set foot in Ireland. He was welcomed by most of the Irish kings, who were uneasy with MacMurrough and his Norman allies. They swore their loyalty to King Henry and bestowed the title of Lordship of Ireland upon him. They viewed Henry as a protector against the Kingdom of Leinster and not as the conqueror he was in fact. These Irish kings apparently didn’t read the tea leaves very well and unwittingly opened the door for the eventual colonization of all of Ireland. While a good portion of his troops remained behind, King Henry headed back to England to attend to some untidy business he created involving the pope and the Catholic Church.

The archbishop of Canterbury was the most powerful position in the ranks of Catholic clergy in England. He was a direct liaison between the Vatican and the King of England. In the mid-12th century, this title belonged to Theobold, a pious man and able church leader. He came to know and admire the talents of a young man named Thomas Becket. Becket was long on intelligence, charm, and wit and Theobold was quick to recognize these traits and wished to put them to good use. Early into their relationship, he sent him to Bologna and Auxerre to study canon law and then patiently awaited his return. That came sometime in 1154, when Becket arrived back in England and reunited with his old mentor. Theobold promptly made him Archdeacon of Canterbury. Becket proved up to the challenge by demonstrating an administrative acumen to go along with his other considerable skills. Later that same year, the archbishop took the opportunity to introduce Becket to King Henry II. Henry was so impressed with Thomas that he appointed him chancellor. They seemed well suited to each other, as both were talented and ambitious men of the world. By all accounts, they got along famously. Their relationship flourished during the next half dozen or so years until the death of Theobold in 1161. Henry saw this as a golden opportunity to gain greater influence over the Catholic Church of England. In a planned masterstroke on his part, he petitioned the pope to make his friend and confidant, Thomas Becket, the new archbishop of Canterbury. Becket reluctantly agreed to accept the position, but warned the king their friendship would most likely be put to the test sometime down the road. That, however, was not the immediate concern. In Theobold’s haste to make Thomas Becket the Archdeacon of Canterbury years before, he had forgotten to have Becket officially ordained into the priesthood. Therefore, to remedy that situation, Becket began one of the more meteoric ascents through the ranks of the Catholic clergy. On June 2, 1162, Becket was installed into the priesthood. The next morning, he was ordained a bishop and later that same day, was made the archbishop of Canterbury. The rise from layman to archbishop in a span of less than forty-eight hours would seem to dispel forever the notion that the Catholic Church was some ponderous institution that could only move at a glacial speed. The new archbishop of Canterbury was sage in his warning to the king that their friendship would be tested. Becket took his office and vows seriously and wasn’t about to blindly rubber stamp his approval on all of King Henry’s proclamations. Within the span of just two short years, Becket was forced to flee to France, knowing the king he constantly enraged was eventually going to have him arrested.

The archbishop of Canterbury was now archbishop in absentia. This was to last nearly six years until late in the year 1170, when a meeting was arranged in Normandy between King Henry II and Becket. This face-to-face reunion resulted in some meaningful fences being mended and long-standing grudges apparently settled. Becket immediately returned to England and assumed his position as archbishop of Canterbury while Henry remained in France. If the King now thought the archbishop would defer to his authority and wishes, he once again badly miscalculated. Becket had previously ex-communicated the archbishop of York, as well as the bishops of London and Salisbury, for crowning Henry’s son, Young Henry, as King. A precedent had been established to have a successor crowned while the reigning king was still alive. The only problem was that the coronation right belonged to the archbishop of Canterbury. Henry now wanted Becket to absolve the three and have them reinstated to their old posts. When word reached the king, still in France, that Becket refused, his blood boiled. Now there are several versions of what exactly King Henry said, but it was basically that this royal pain in the ass finally had to go. To go simply could have been interpreted as meaning back into exile, or perhaps more menacingly, meet his maker. Four of the kings more faithful knights took it to mean the latter and set sail for England to carry out the mission. They arrived in Canterbury on December 29, 1170, and found Becket about to go to vespers. They gave him a chance to go to Winchester and submit to the king but Becket refused. That response sealed his fate. The knights drew their swords and cut him down, and left his body where it lay.

Becket was much beloved in England and there was a loud hue and cry from the king’s subjects to arrest and try these knights and bring them to justice. Instead, they were merely excommunicated by the pope and simply considered disgraced and to be treated as outcasts. The king was more fortunate. Pope Alexander III was still obsessed by the renegade Catholic Church of Ireland and he required Henry’s help to bring it in line with its counterpart in England. The pope absolved the king of any involvement in Becket’s death, convinced Henry neither wished nor ordered it. Instead, the king was to perform public penance for any perceived wrongdoing as related to Becket’s death. That meant he would pray at the Church at Canterbury, and then walk barefoot while being flogged by a phalanx of monks. It was said that the normally placid friars were filled with the Holy Spirit that day and gave the murderous king the good whipping he deserved. With this show of supposed repentance, King Henry II was back in the pope’s good graces. It was now finally the time to invoke the late and venerable Pope Adrian IV’s papal bull.

Sometime in the spring of 1172, Pope Alexander III sent a message to King Henry to affirm the bull issued some seventeen years earlier by his predecessor. He referred to the barbarous nation of Ireland and the need to abolish the filthy practices that so pervaded the land. Although the letter was rather vague in outlining just what these practices were, it was quite specific when it came to, once and for all, implementing the penny per hearth tax that was already in place in England. Essentially, it meant every household in Ireland, even those without the luxury of a fireplace, would remit a penny each year to the Church. Since the word tax seemed so secular and lacking any charitable connotation, it was instead referred to as Peter’s Pence, to be collected annually each August 1st, the Feast of Saint Peter ad Vincula. The proceeds of the collection would then be remitted to the Holy See in Rome, minus, of course, some administrative expenses deducted by the king. The Catholics in Ireland could finally get down to adhering to the Church’s core tenets of praying, paying, and obeying. If giving was good for the soul, then the impoverished Irish may have been a penny poorer, but they were certainly a pound richer in the eyes of God, or so they were led to believe. As if to square the circle and leave no loose ends about, Pope Alexander III had Thomas Becket canonized a saint on February 21, 1173. He also absolved the four knights for their homicidal role in Becket’s death after they travelled to Rome seeking his forgiveness. Their pardon would require them to serve in the Holy Land as protectors of the faithful for slightly more than a decade. A cynical observer would have dismissed this as the pope’s poor attempt to sweep any remnants of the Becket mess under an Arabian carpet and not simply a forgiving and magnanimous gesture on the part of the pontiff. Three more centuries and five additional King Henrys would come and go before the next big challenge befell Ireland.

The noose tightened a little more for the Irish when the eighth edition of an English king named Henry came to the throne in 1509. This was King Henry VIII. Though only seventeen at the time, he was well educated, articulate, mature, and a devout Catholic. By 1514, early in his reign, he became aware of a gifted intellectual named Thomas More and started to put his considerable talents to work. That year, More was appointed as a Privy Councilor, a member of His Majesty’s Privy Council, or inner circle. Thomas More became a confidant of the king and his titles and responsibilities continued to grow as the years progressed. He was subsequently knighted and became a personal secretary and advisor to King Henry and served as liaison between the king and Cardinal Wolsey, the Lord Chancellor. More also had written the novel, Utopia, in which he laid out his vision of an idealistic society that was orderly, equal, fair, and tolerant. In other words, one that didn’t exist at the time in which he lived or for that matter, any other time in the history of humankind. Ironically, in the period directly after its publication, an upheaval in the social order and tolerance would make the world a little less utopian. A disenfranchised Catholic priest named Martin Luther would break away from the Catholic Church and usher in what came to be known as the Protestant Reformation.

Thomas More was a devout Catholic, but even he knew the Catholic Church was in need of some reforms. However, he didn’t side with Martin Luther when it came to the sale of indulgences, which was near the top of the list of Luther’s gripes with the Church. Luther firmly believed that forgiveness was the province of God alone, and that purchasing indulgences should not absolve anyone of their sins. Salvation had to be earned. In other words, he felt you can’t buy your, or someone else’s, way into Heaven. Luther cynically believed that a good portion of the proceeds from the sale of indulgences was being funneled by Pope Leo X directly into a fund offsetting the cost of the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica. The building of this monumental cathedral started in April of 1506, but neither the pope nor anyone else alive at that time would live to see its completion and dedication a century later in 1626. The Catholic Church had dealt with heretics like Martin Luther before, but clearly underestimated his resolve. There was a tried and true formula used by the Church in these matters. Initially, a series of writings would come out of Rome designed to discredit the individual. If that didn’t work, the Church would usually arrange a face-to-face meeting to talk sense to this confused and misguided soul. The more severe cases sometimes required an extended stay in prison to clear the mind of this malcontent and when all else failed, there was always the ritualistic cleansing by fire, that is, burning them at the stake. Luther knew he was going to be arrested when he failed to recant, but fortunately for him, he had some powerful friends in high places in Germany who decided to protect him and keep him out of harm’s way. Unable to get their hands on him, in January of 1521, the Catholic Church simply excommunicated Luther and branded him a heretic, figuratively speaking.

Later that same year, King Henry VIII wrote a letter, with some scholarly assistance by Thomas More, which responded to the criticisms of the Catholic Church by Martin Luther. Pope Leo X was so impressed that he conferred the title Defender of the Faith upon the king. Luther was less awed. He responded by calling Henry a pig and a liar, among some other choice names. This war of words escalated when Thomas More, writing under the nom de plume Rosseus, fired back at Luther, referring to him as a drunkard and an ape. The verbal sparring between these two intellectual heavyweights just went to show that if you cannot win an argument on the merits, then resort to some good old-fashioned name-calling. Thomas More knew that the Protestant Reformation movement spelled trouble for the Catholic Church and the stable, ordered, utopian society that he so desired. What he could not foresee was that his own sovereign king, and friend, would strike the next blow.

Henry VIII had married his older brother Arthur’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, in early June 1509, just a few days shy of his eighteenth birthday. Catherine was just five years older, yet she was already on her second marriage. Actually, her arranged marriage to Arthur, King Henry VII’s oldest son, lasted just five months before Arthur took ill and died suddenly at the age of fifteen in 1502. Apparently, their marriage was never consummated and so she was able to get the papal dispensation required for her subsequent marriage to Henry VIII in the spring of 1509. The king, a young adult at the age of eighteen, was not the bloated and sotted individual later depicted in so many royal paintings. He was handsome, educated, charming and apparently had a way with women. Looks, charisma, and power could go a long way in the royal court with so many ladies in waiting, female attendants, and maidens. This marriage seemingly was consummated with all due haste since Catherine delivered a stillborn daughter the following January 1510. Later that same year, Henry apparently began the first