Dublin 1171 AD

[Mick Hession]

The Battle of Dublin: late Summer 1171


Protagonists: Anglo-Normans under Strongbow (600 men plus an unspecified number of Irish auxiliaries and Ostmen) V Irish under Rory O'Connor (30,000 - 60,000 men, though those numbers are Old French shorthand for "a lot"). Modern estimates put the Irish, at least those engaged, at closer to 3,000.

Summary:

In 1171 the high king Rory O'Connor (Ruadhri Ua Conchubhair) led a large army to blockade Dublin, held by the Normans under Strongbow. The different contingents camped in a circuit separately some miles from the town whilst a Manx fleet severed communications by sea. Rory's own fortified camp was at Castleknock, on the Liffey to the west of Dublin. After a couple of months food began to run short; Strongbow offered terms which were refused. Overconfident, Rory sent a detachment including all of his cavalry to harry the lands of Strongbow's Leinster allies and failed to keep watch on Dublin. The garrison availed of this to launch a surprise sortie against Rory's camp which was completely successful. Rory's contingent was utterly routed, whereupon the other Irish and Manx contingents returned home.

The Sources:

The Song of Dermot and the Earl: verses 1880-1960 (online at www.ucc.ie/celt)

Then the earl caused to be summoned
1880] Miles de Cogan the light of limb:
'Make all your men arm, barons,
Sally forth in the foremost van;
In the name of the Almighty Father
In the foremost van sally forth.'
1885] About forty horsemen
Are with Miles before in the front,
Sixty archers and one hundred sergeants
Had Miles under his orders.
And then next, Raymond le Gros
1890] With forty companions,
And he had one hundred fighting-men
And three-score archers.
And then next, the good earl
With forty fighting-men
1895] With one hundred hardy sergeants
And three-score archers.
Very well armed they were
Horsemen, sergeants, and hired soldiers.
When the earl had sallied forth
1900] With his friends and his comrades,
Miles placed himself at the head in the van
With two hundred fighting vassals;
And then next Raymond le Gros
With about two hundred companions;
1905] In the third company the noble earl
With two hundred hardy vassals.
Donnell Kavanagh, of a truth,
Auliffe O'Garvy likewise,
And O'Reilly of Tirbrun,
1910] Of whom you have already heard,
Were in the van with Miles,
As the Song tells us.
But the Irish of the district
Knew nought of this affair:
1915] Of the barons thus armed,
And equipped for battle.
Miles de Cogan very quickly
By the direct road towards Finglas
Towards their stockades thereupon
1920] Set out at a rapid pace.
When Miles had drawn near
To where the Irish were encamped,
'A Cogan!' he shouted aloud,
'Strike, in the name of the Cross!
1925] Strike, barons, nor delay at all,
In the name of Jesus the son of Mary!
Strike, noble knights,
At your mortal enemies!'
The renowned liege barons
1930] At their huts and cabins
Attacked the Irish
And fell upon their tents;
And the Irish unarmed
Fled through the moors:
1935] Throughout the country they fled away
Like scattered cattle.
Raymond le Gros also
Oft invoked St. David,
And went pursuing the Irish
1940] To work his will upon them;
And Richard the good earl
Did so well that day,
So well did the earl do,
That all were astonished;
1945] And Meiler the son of Henry,
Who was of such renown,
Bore himself so bravely
That men wondered.
A hundred and more were slain
1950] While bathing where they were beset,
And more than one thousand five hundred
Of these men were slain,
While of the English there was wounded
Only one foot-sergeant.
1955] The field remained that day
With Richard, the good earl,
And the Irish departed
Discomfited and outdone:
As God willed, at that time,
1960] The field remained with our English.
So much provision did they find,
Corn, meal, and bacon,
That for a year in the city
They had victuals in abundance,"

Giraldus Cambrensis: Expugnatio Hibernica I:24 (edited and translated by A.B. Scott and F.X. Martin. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy 1978)

"So the picked fighting men rushed to take up arms and immediately divided into three companies, although these were sparsely filled up. Raymond was in the first line with twenty knights, Miles was in the middle with thirty, while the Earl and Maurice were in the rear line with forty. There were also archers and a few citizens who had been added to each company, without allowing the defence of the city to suffer. So they suddenly issued forth from the city about an hour after Nones, after a good deal of argument as to which of them, the commander of the city or the garrison, should have the privilege of being the first to engage the enemy. With this small force they valiantly attacked an army of thirty thousand men, which was completely off its guard after an earlier encounter on the morning of that same day. Raymond, foremost among the vanguard, was the first to attack the enemy and immediately, far out in front of the others, transfixed two of them with hus lance. Meiler too, and Maurice's two sons Gerald and Alexander, although they had been assigned to the rearmost company, gave an indication of their innate courage by suddenly rushing up into the front rank. These men, made conspicuous by their arms no less than their courage, followed hard on the heels of the enemy and dispatched many from the light of day down to the darkness of the lower world. So they killed many and completely routed all of them. Indeed Ruaidri, who chanced just then to be sitting in the bath, only just escaped. Bent on slaughter, they pursued the fugitives and vanquished until evening. Then at last they returned, covered with glory and loaded down with food and provisions, booty and arms."

All of the Irish annals are available at www.ucc.ie/celt . The affair gets a brief mention in only two of them, the older source being the Annals of Tighernach (1171.9):

"A hosting by Ruaidhrí Ó Conchobhair, by Tighearnán Ó Ruairc and by Muircheartach Ó Cearbhaill, king of Oriel, to Dublin in order to besiege Dublin and the Earl and Miles Cogan. For the space of a fortnight there were conflicts and skirmishes between them. Then Leth Cuinn separated, and Ó Conchobhair marched to meet the Leinstermen, and the cavalry of the men of Breifne and Oriel went to cut down the Englishmen's corn. The Earl and Miles Cogan entered the camp of Leth Cuinn and killed a multitude of their rabble, and carried off their provisions, their armour, and their sumpter-horses."

The Annals of the Four Masters, a later compilation, repeats this account almost verbatim (1171.18).

Commentary:

Although a minor affair in terms of numbers engaged this was one of the most strategically important battles ever fought in Ireland as the siege was probably the last real opportunity for the native Irish to expel the Normans. It is interesting to see how the different sources treat it. Giraldus minimises the Norman numbers and omits the Irish allies while emphasising and exaggerating the role of his own relatives, Raymond and the sons of Maurice. The Song however treats De Cogan far more favourably.

By contrast, most of the Irish annals ignore the sortie altogether although they all relate a slightly later engagement, "the battle of the ashes", near Dublin where the heir apparent of Breifne, an important Connacht sub-kingdom, was slain. Their interest in an insignificant skirmish is in stark contrast to their treatment of what with hindsight would turn out to be one of the most decisive battles in Irish history. This might be because the annalists sought to draw a discreet veil over Rory's inglorious defeat, but I believe the editorial emphasis provides an important illustration of the medieval Irish obsession with nobility and station: to their mind the breaking of the siege was unimportant because nobody of note died, only "the rabble", whilst the battle of the ashes was notable because of the death of a prince. This mindset, this failure to realise that the English were not simply Vikings on horseback, meant that the initial Irish response was ineffectual and sowed the seeds of the future conquest.

[aligern]

Great stuff Mick, I remember refighting Dublin at a Tower of London Education day with Matt Bennett.
Was a large part of the importance of this battle that it convinced the king of England (Henry II) that he had better take control of the establishment of a new Anglo Norman nobility in Hibernia before the barons became an independent entity.
The traditional image of this campaign is that it is prime evidence that the Norman combination  of mailed knights and archers was  so much in the advance of the Irish kit and tactics that the warfare was asymmetrical and that the Irish could not stand in the open field. What would be your views on this?
Roy

[Patrick Waterson]

Nice, readable, insightful battle post, Mr Hession!  Please keep up the good work!

What do you think of the traditional campaign image as mentioned by Roy?  And if the Irish could not make a successful stand in the open field, how much of it was technology and technique and how much mindset and leadership?  If that does not require a whole article to answer ...

Patrick

[aligern]

And if it is a whole article  send it to the Editor. I bet he'd love to have it.

Roy

[Mick Hession]

That's one of the values of this exercise. By transcribing the sources I became more aware of the discrepancies between them, and also that the engagement was actually more complex than I'd remembered or suspected (Giraldus' simplistic account is better known than the Song's, unfortunately). Worth exploring further, I think.

To answer Roy's question, Henry was already getting fretful and had embargoed shipping to Ireland; an unsuccessful envoy from Strongbow to Henry had returned to Dublin empty-handed just before the siege began. Strongbow's success in the battle probably made Henry's mind up to intervene in person, but in my opinion some sort of royal intervention was on the cards anyway. No Angevin wanted to have a subject calling himself a king, after all.

Norman technology _was_ vastly superior but the view that the archer/knight combination was the whole picture (which Giraldus implies) is possibly a bit simplistic. Simms suggests the knights' charge was not just lethal in its own right but incidentally very disruptive to the Irish infantry, bowling them over like ninepins so that much of the actual killing was done by Irish auxiliaries following closely behind and beheading the stunned survivors of the cavalry charge. That view has merit, I think.

However as wargamers I think we tend to give too much weight to purely tactical factors. Most warfare in Ireland - as in the Welsh marches - consisted of raiding and skirmishing, and full scale pitched battles were rare even during the initial phase of the invasion, i.e. before the Irish had learned not to face the Normans in the open field. Strategically I think castellation was more decisive as the typical Irish strategy in the face of stronger attackers was the imirce or evacuation: the flight to marginal land that was at the same time defensible and not worth attacking. Once the attackers had left you could then reoccupy your land. That worked fine against Irish cattle raiders or Norse slavers, but Normans had a nasty habit of plonking a castle on the land so reoccupation wasn't an option.  Other cultural factors like the fetishisation of aristocracy, elective kingship (guaranteeing a ready supply of disaffected rivals willing to accept Norman "help"), laxity in religion (allowing the Normans to present themselves as God's "enforcers"), and a completely different legal system that allowed Normans to claim succession rights under _Common_ law that had no basis under the brehon system, were also important. There's probably an article in there somewhere, after I've transcribed the battle description for Clontarf