Corcomroe 1317 AD

[Mick Hession]

The Battle of Corcomroe, 1317AD

Protagonists: Donough O'Brien (Brian Rua faction) V Dermot O'Brien (ClanCullen faction: possibly as high as 1,000 men, but outnumbered by their opponents).   

Summary: One of the areas of Ireland still in Irish hands in the early 14th century was the rump of Brian Boru's old kingdom of Thomond (roughly equivalent to the modern County Clare). For many years the kingdom had been riven by two competing factions, that of Brian Rua, led by Donough O'Brien and that of ClanCullen under Dermot O'Brien. Dermot's faction had previously been driven out by his rival but in 1317 he returned from exile and gathered an army that was camped at the abbey of Corcomroe. Donough mobilised his followers and marched to meet Dermot for what would prove to be the decisive battle of the conflict.

The battle opened with an exchange of missiles, but being outnumbered ClanCullen was anxious to terminate this phase as soon as possible and came to handstrokes. The battle was a fluid infantry melee with swords and thrusting spears and whilst bodies of men might form clumps around their leaders there was no continuous shieldwall and the two sides actually fought through their opponent's lines, ending up facing their own "baselines" in wargames parlance. ClanCullen began to get the upper hand and to restore the situation Donough attacked towards Dermot's position on horseback, only to be cut down, whereupon his army broke in flight, pursued by the victorious ClanCullen.

The battle itself had virtually zero strategic impact, being to all intents and purposes a victory of Tweedledum over Tweedledee, but is described in great detail in a work know as Caithreim Thairdelbaich, the Triumphs of Turlough.

Commentary:

We don't lack accounts of the cattle raids and skirmishes that were the staple of Irish warfare throughout the ages but this passage is the most detailed account we have of how Irish armies fought in pitched battle and is therefore indispensable for anyone interested in medieval Irish warfare. There is no tactical subtlety other than the pre-battle decision by ClanCullen to cut the initial missile exchange short: this is an archetypal infantry slog.

The translator has rendered most words into English but you will see repeated occurrences of the word Iracht. This literally means "assembly" but no single word or phrase in English conveys its meaning. It is a collective noun meaning a combination of the Lord's household, his direct retainers and his clients among the nobility and gentry. In other words, the political class that had a direct stake in the outcome of a conflict like that in early 14th century Thomond. 

Source: The Triumphs of Turlough. On-line version from www.ucc.celt.ie pp. 99-104

By this time the whole of either army had a near view of the other and made out that the leaders 'sought no prop,' their soldiers wavered not nor their young men hesitated; they perceived them rather to be angrily reckless, mettlesome, glad to encounter. In both hosts indiscriminately indeed many were the strapping freehanded hardhitting heavy-weaponed gentlemen who, even as they strove to be first into it, were fey; but the fashion of brave clan-Brian-Rua's coming upon the field was with a flock of scallcrows, a clump of ravens and a pack of wolves, in close attendance after them.

All reached the dorsal ridge of the stubborn plain that shewed its bleached face varied with dark irregular seams; and they being there, at this first almost contact of the parties certain hot spirits in the way of challenge let fly with stones and javelins, darts and arrows, reciprocally. By these first contributions was established a darkling dropping mist, a showering cloud of pebbles and of splintering shafts, that assailed their heads and arms and legs; yea, so thickly that the spears flying would split each other and, in the malice of that pelting rain, stones turn the slender arrows' points.

At once both sides impetuously followed up these provocations: full tilt they came at each other and, if all bands got the charitable dole to solicit which they came, it shewed that neither was any guilty of parsimonious remissness in bestowing.

As the lines touched they vented ringing cheers, a call which failed not of response from the creatures both of Heaven and of this fair Earth: for loudly Ireland's coasts reechoed this hateful strife's commotion; the ever-beneficent Sun renounced his brilliant aspect and for the time hid his face from the Erinachs; uproariously the Sea discoursed, and with her great insolent waves showed as though she would have poured in over the edges and flooded the central plain of Erin. But when actually they crashed together, straight before them with their spears they pushed undeviatingly, and so stiffly stood to it that the tough shafts, no more enduring the distress, were sprung and shivered until in red-wetted fragments they strewed all the ground. From point to cross-hilt, swords they gapped on heads and skulls until the weapons damaged and disfigured lay piled in chaos: their bossy pommels shed, cross-guards twisted, ivory cheeks of their gripes split or knocked off. Now came the leaders 'with their scabbards emptied' [swords drawn] and made their good people to fall on in earnest for the real brunt and main effort: they chopped up the mailshirts to such purpose that after the battle it was by little bits they were picked up; and the greenedged redbroidered actons were hewn asunder dyed completely crimson for, white as they had been coming into the dilemma, any one of them might have been turned inside out and found impurpled through and through. Their enormous quantity considered, never had there been met spoils more profitless for extent of their defects and dilapidations; unless indeed it were [that their profit lay in] the loss of their owners perished in making a good fight for them.

They all sticking to it thus and holding out at close quarters; the gentlemen also on either side being resolved to stand their ground, their helmets' plates split upon their heads and their collars in pieces about their necks; every man recognised in the press some special mark for his swordstroke, and greedily, perpetually, they leaped out of their own into the opposing ranks: each one at his kinsman-enemy, whom then either by his curling hair and his headgear he would hale to him and bring back among his own, or (should the other prove the stronger) remain his prize. At last they were so, that with the vigour of the 'dipping,' sore-ness of the hammering and energy of concussion, they actually changed places: the host that came out of the west now being to the eastward, and clan-Turlough-More like a demesne fence on their enemy's west side.

Here Dermot rose and diligently devoted himself to fall on clan-Brian-Rua: their gentlemen he slew, cut their armature to pieces, filled their warriors' skins with holes, and by death abated their good people's numbers.

As for Maccon, against Donough the chief and his clans hardily and successfully he held his own. In the end there grew between them rows of the noble dead; so that across those mounds of them no one might reach another, but it was by fetching a compass round about the thick-laid slain that they had to keep the battle going. There many a one searched for his own peculiar foe to have at him; heroes dealt wounds: some shore off arms, some carved crisscrossways, young men had their weapons in smart play, and so without remission of spirit all irachts took on them and performed each one its duty.

With his good confidentials [i.e. his bodyguard] Dermot sought by main force to 'disperse the battle'; O'Brien's (Donough's) confidentials laid about them viciously. The Corcamachs held the 'yoke of battle' unmoved in its exact right place, saying (and well they acted up to it) that whoso should budge an inch from his fighting station no more should be a man of Corcamrua. Clanmahon strove to break the enemy; clan-Teigue swept round them, and in divers parts of the field Brian, son's son to Donall mac Teigue More, did ample execution until he was hurt and bonesplit in the head. Felim O'Conor wrought equally; and he it was that, as the armies advanced to close, had done the marasgalacht [mareschal's office] of his own, in exercise of which he had his travail well rewarded by the enemy's [missile] weapons at close range, until ahead of all he charged right up to them. Kinelfermac held good and, in the effort made to dislodge them, bore to be cut down in their places; Hy-Cormac accepted some of the hardest fighting of the day, for their chief and generous captain Lochlainn O'Hechir gave his life to uphold his honour, his valour, and to vindicate his patrimony.

At the very outset, Conor mac an togha of the thick spear and broad blade with two hundred men hurtled among them, maiming some, beheading others, until by mere number and weight of the weapons brought to bear on him he was overmatched. However, though one and all individually, and every iracht collectively, charged over and over again in the style described by us, still on Maccon fell the task of keeping the battle 'braced together': there he stood rooted and held the key of the position, at the same time that he multiplied the slain and minished the living of his enemies. For out of the west hardly was there come champion or great chief's son, chieftain or noble captain of clan-Brian-Rua, but continually and wildly cried out for 'Mac Conmara'; and all the mutiny that the leader had to put up with from his irachts amounted only to this: that his gentlemen insisted on answering these provocations, and in response to them would impersonate Mac Conmara with springing to meet his challengers. As for Maccon's self, no easy game had he to play where he found himself planted: in the nucleus of the fight, encircled with a trusty pale of Cullenach gentlemen that parried for him; Felim O'Conor also being in the same predicament, and in like wise busied. To range through the battle they detached a chosen party of Cullenachs, every man of whom for enhancement of his own fame above [that of] others sought opportunity to give and to take blows and buffets. Nicol Mac Conmara, belabouring them furiously in head and leg, and even trisecting them, slew the great chief's folk at discretion; and the feats that he performed were some from which (but for his shield that proved his salvation) he never had returned. Hugh mac Donough mac Conmara rose to disintegrate and exterminate his foes; and he (son's son to Cumea More), though but a stripling, disported himself manfully on them that were full grown, working the Blodachs grievous losses. Rory mac Teigue Mac Conmara leaping into them burst through the pen-folds of their shields, laid many low, and weeded out their sections; while contemplation of Dermot mac Turlough More as with his good sword he felled and prostrated their leaders, made it the easier for his own gentlemen to keep their hearts staunch in their place. When then Donough, chief of clan-Brian-Rua, saw his companies attenuated, his people cut up small and his very nearest kin annihilated, he drove into the enemy's actual centre and there Felim O'Conor happened in his way to meet him. The chief, levelling his well-rivetted keen-tipped spear, put it through Felim's hand [his left]; O'Conor raised the deadly hard-steeled polished blue-glancing axe, and on the princely commander delivered a slanting stroke that to one side of his reins took effect on his mail, breaking the skin and rupturing a kidney, but one single ring of the mail it never broke. Donough now perceiving his fighting power to fail, his strength to ebb and his vigour to be reduced by the blow, bravely he faced for Dermot mac Turlough More's encircling bodyguard and, in a last rally to get at his noble kinsman, bore himself well and desperately. They however with their heavy weapons completely 'thatched' the chief, piercing him with spears and hacking him with swords, so that between the over-whelming numbers of their arms and their persistence [in using them] Donough the chief perished by Dermot's guard.

Now Brian Bane mac Donall O'Brien seeing Donough his brother cut off, Murtough garbh both otherwise wounded and pruned of a limb, Brian of Berra fallen with his side laid open, Teigue of Limerick fairly split down with swordblades, and his gentlemen all destroyed, he cast about to shift for himself and so took a precipitate eastward course to the skirts of Burren, that is hoary and slippery with her crag.

Over wide Burren's naked hills the swiftly fleeing rout with much destruction was pursued. Athwart the battleground on which they met, many a chieftain was stretched on his back; many a one lay mangled, many a young man groaned and many a gentleman made act of penance. In numbers there, and on both sides, they had turbulent hate-inspired members of opposing septs extended by the side or else thrown one atop of other. By the beard clutched in great handfuls, some held their rivals fast to them; many a man still alive and able faintly to articulate, lay prisoner to the valiant dead whose grip was frozen on his limbs or armour; even not a few, all hastening as they were to death, because their hands were shredded off and fallen to the ground sought with their teeth to behead their enemies, to 'nose-chew' them, to flail them [with their stumps]; with uncertain steps others again that had their eyeballs slit across with swords groped, guided by each others' voices. Nor was it easy for any there to recognise his dearest friend, so many were the bodies that lay contiguous to heads other than their own; arms flung far from their native shoulders; fingers wandered off from their rightful hands; feet strayed from their straight long shanks. Much hair in spirals, great plenty of fair locks in rolls and wavy tresses, ingrained red 'at the first heat,' were whistled down the shrilly wind.

Clan-Turlough-More, victorious, but covered with wounds and having great gaps in their kindreds, battle-decimated, nevertheless with exultation rallied to one place to count their own losses, to estimate those they had inflicted, to attend to their gentlemen's hurts, to throw an eye over their freeborn clans; and each iracht's gathering separately proceeded to search for and to visit them that they missed.

[Patrick Waterson]

Excellent, Mick - and entertaining.  This account does indicate that with the mediaeval Irish attitude was everything and tactical technique was optional.  Nothing like a good bit of stump-flailing, tooth-beheading and nose-biting to give a battle flavour ...

Chieftains do appear to have hedged their bets in one respect, however.  While their followers' mail was shredded into bits and swords broken asunder, the chiefs appear to have had (e.g.) a 'well-rivetted keen spear' and armour of a quality such that 'one single ring of the mail it never broke'; in other words their armour and weapons appear to have been made to a much superior standard.  Heroism with forethought, it appears!

The 'yoke of battle' seems to have done the work of a standard, giving an orientation point for those who cared, and 'keeping the battle braced together'.

Patrick

[Mick Hession]

Elsewhere in the Triumphs it's stated that at least some of the household were issued with armour from the chieftain's stores. I suspect he kept the best for himself though 

Cheers
Mick

[Mark]

I think the URL quoted is incorrect? (I was just inspired to go off an read it, principally to work out whether "minished" can be used to describe anything other than a small shed.

The site seems to be http://www.ucc.ie/celt/ and the Triumphs are at http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100062/index.html

The answer seems to be that the translation was made in 1721 AD, at which time minished presumably meant something like diminished.

[Mick Hession]

Sorry, that's correct: I just gave the url for the homepage, not of the source itself. Mea culpa.

And "minished" does indeed mean "(di)minished"

Regards
Mick