Norman Irish orHiberno-Normans (Irish:Normánach;Old Irish:Gall'foreigners') is a modern term for the descendants ofNorman settlers who arrived during theAnglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Most came fromEngland andWales. They are distinguished from the nativeGaelic Irish, although some Normans eventually becameGaelicised. The Hiberno-Normans were afeudalaristocracy andmerchantoligarchy which controlled theLordship of Ireland. The Hiberno-Normans were associated with theGregorian Reform of theCatholic Church in Ireland and contributed to the emergence of aHiberno-English dialect.
Some of the most prominent Hiberno-Norman families were theBurkes (de Burghs),Butlers, andFitzGeralds. One of the most commonIrish surnames,Walsh, derives from Welsh Normans who arrived in Ireland as part of this group. Some Norman families were said to have become "more Irish than the Irish themselves" by merging culturally and intermarrying with theGaels.
The dominance of the Catholic Hiberno-Normans waned during the 16th centuryEnglish Reformation, when theProtestant "New English" elite settled in Ireland. The Hiberno-Normans came to be known as theOld English (Seanghaill) at this time. Many Norman-Irish families spread throughout the world as part of theIrish diaspora. Following theGlorious Revolution, many Old English families promoted unity with the Gaels under the denominator of "Irish Catholic", while others were assimilated into a newIrish Protestant identity, which also included later settler groups such as theUlster Scots andHuguenots.
By the late 12th century, the distinction between the Saxon and Norman populations of England was beginning to dissolve. Contemporary sources (including those written inAnglo-Norman) refer to the invaders who crossed the Irish Sea at this time simply as "the English". It has therefore been questioned whether the termNorman is appropriate in an Irish context. According to Robin Frame, "for historians studying language and elite culture, 'Anglo‐Norman' or 'Anglo‐French' is a defensible alternative; for those concerned with politics, government, and national consciousness, 'English' is probably the least inaccurate way of describing those involved in the invasions of 1167–71 and the colonization that followed". Nevertheless, a range of terms continue in use, includingNorman,Anglo‐Norman,Cambro‐Norman, and (for the descendants of the initial incomers)Hiberno-Norman.[1][2]
In the 16th century, when theTudor conquest brought a new wave of incomers to Ireland, the descendants of those who had arrived in the Middle Ages came to be known as theOld English, in contrast to theNew English.[3]
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Traditionally, London-based Anglo-Norman governments expected the Normans in theLordship of Ireland to promote the interests of theKingdom of England, through the use of theEnglish language (despite the fact that they spokeNorman French rather than English), law, trade, currency, social customs, and farming methods. The Norman community in Ireland was, however, never monolithic. In some areas, especially in the Pale aroundDublin, and in relatively urbanised communities inKilkenny,Limerick,Cork and southWexford, people spoke the English language (though sometimes in divergent local dialects such asYola andFingallian), used English law, and in some respects lived in a manner similar to that found in England.
However, in the provinces, the Normans in Ireland (Irish:Gaill meaning "foreigners") were at times indistinguishable from the surrounding Gaelic lords and chieftains. Dynasties such as theFitzgeralds, Butlers, Burkes, and Wall clans adopted the native language,legal system, and other customs such as fostering and intermarriage with the Gaelic Irish and the patronage ofIrish poetry and music. Such people became regarded as "more Irish than the Irish themselves" as a result of this process (see alsoHistory of Ireland (1169–1536)). The most accurate name for the Gaelicised Anglo-Irish throughout the late medieval period was Hiberno-Norman, a name which captures the distinctive blended culture which this community created and within which it operated until the Tudor conquest. In an effort to halt the ongoingGaelicisation of the Anglo-Irish community, the Irish Parliament passed theStatutes of Kilkenny in 1367, which among other things banned the use of the Irish language, the wearing of Irish clothes, as well as prohibiting the Gaelic Irish from living within walled towns.
Despite these efforts, by 1515, one official lamented, that "all the common people of the said half counties [of The Pale] that obeyeth the King's laws, for the most part be of Irish birth, of Irish habit, and of Irish language."[4] English administrators such asFynes Moryson, writing in the last years of the sixteenth century, shared the latter view of the Anglo-Irish: "the English Irish and the very citizens (excepting those of Dublin where the lord deputy resides) though they could speak English as well as we, yet commonly speak Irish among themselves, and were hardly induced by our familiar conversation to speak English with us".[5] Moryson's views on the cultural fluidity of the so-calledEnglish Pale were echoed by other commentators such as Richard Stanihurst who, while protesting the Englishness of the Palesmen in 1577, opined that "Irish was universally gaggled in the English Pale".[6]
Beyond the Pale, the term 'English', if and when it was applied, referred to a thin layer of landowners and nobility, who ruled overGaelic Irish freeholders and tenants. The division between the Pale and the rest of Ireland was therefore in reality not rigid or impermeable, but rather one of gradual cultural and economic differences across wide areas. Consequently, the English identity expressed by representatives of the Pale when writing in English to the English Crown often contrasted radically with their cultural affinities and kinship ties to the Gaelic world around them, and this difference between their cultural reality and their expressed identity is a central reason for the Old English'slater support of Roman Catholicism.[7] There was no religious division in medieval Ireland, beyond the requirement that English-born prelates should run the Irish church. However, most of the pre-16th century inhabitants of Ireland continued their allegiance toRoman Catholicism, following theHenrician Reformation of the 1530s, even after the establishment of theAnglican CatholicChurch of Ireland.
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In contrast to previous English settlers, theNew English, that wave of settlers who came to Ireland from England during theElizabethan era onwards as a result of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, were more self-consciously English, and were largely (though not entirely)Protestant. To the New English, many of the Old Anglo-Irish were "degenerate", having "gone native" and adopted Irish customs as well as choosing to adhere to Roman Catholicism after the Crown's official split with Rome. The poetEdmund Spenser was one of the chief advocates of this view. He argued inA View of the Present State of Irelande (1595) that a failure to conquer Ireland fully in the past had led the Old generations of English settlers to become corrupted by the native Irish culture. In the course of the 16th century, the religious division had the effect of alienating most of the Old Anglo-Irish from the state, and bolstered byJacobite reverts like the Dillons propelled them into making common cause with the Gaelic Irish under theIrish Catholic identity.
The first confrontation between the Old English and the English government in Ireland came with the cess crisis of 1556–1583. During that period, the Pale community resisted paying for the English army sent to Ireland to put down a string of revolts which culminated in theDesmond Rebellions (1569–1573 and 1579–1583). The term "Old English" was coined at this time, as the Pale community emphasised their English identity and loyalty to the Stuart Crown and refusing to co-operate with the wishes of the Elizabeth's Parliament as represented in Ireland by theLord Deputy of Ireland.
Originally, the conflict was a civil issue, as the Palesmen objected to paying new taxes that had not first been approved by them in theParliament of Ireland. The dispute, however, also soon took on a religious dimension, especially after 1570, whenElizabeth I of England wasexcommunicated byPope Pius V'spapal bullRegnans in Excelsis. In response, Elizabeth banned theJesuits from her realms as they were seen as being among thePapacy's most radical agents of theCounter-Reformation which, among other aims, sought to topple her from her thrones. Rebels such asJames Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald portrayed their rebellion as a "Holy War", and indeed received money and troops from the papal coffers. In theSecond Desmond Rebellion (1579–1583), a prominent Pale lord, James Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass, joined the rebels from religious motivation. Before the rebellion was over, several hundred Old English Palesmen had been arrested and sentenced to death, either for outright rebellion, or because they were suspected rebels because of their religious views. Most were eventually pardoned after paying fines of up to 100 pounds, a very large sum for the time. However, twentylanded gentlemen from some of the Pale's leading Old English families were executed; some of them "died in the manner of [Roman] Catholic martyrs, proclaiming they were suffering for their religious beliefs".[8]
This episode marked an important break between the Pale and the English regime in Ireland, and between the Old English and the New English.
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In the subsequentNine Years' War (1594–1603), the Pale and the Old English towns remained loyal;[9] they were in favour of outward loyalty to the English Crown during another rebellion.
However, it was the English Government's administration in Ireland along loyalist lines particularly following the failure of theGunpowder Plot in 1605 that would lead to severing the main political ties between the Old English and England itself.
First, in 1609, Roman Catholics were banned from holding public office in Ireland forcing many Old English like the Dillons to outwardly adopt Anglican Catholicism. Then, in 1613, the constituencies of the Irish Parliament were changed so that the New English would have a slight majority in theIrish House of Commons. Thirdly, in the 1630s, many members of the Old English landowning class were forced to confirm the ancient title to their land-holdings often in the absence of title deeds, which resulted in some having to pay substantial fines to retain their property, while others ended up losing some or all of their land in this complex legal process (seePlantations of Ireland).
The political response of the Old Anglo-Irish community was forced to go over the heads of the New English in Dublin and appeal directly to their sovereign in his role asKing of Ireland which further disgruntled them.
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The Old English sought a package of reforms, first fromJames I and then from his sonCharles I, known asThe Graces, which included provisions forreligious toleration and civil equality for Roman Catholics in return for their payment of increased taxes. On several occasions in the 1620s and 1630s, however, after they had agreed to pay the higher taxes to the Crown, they found that the Monarch or his Irish viceroy Thomas Wentworth chose instead to defer some of the agreed concessions. This was to prove counterproductive for the cause of the English administration in Ireland, as it led to Old English writers such asGeoffrey Keating to argue (as he did inForas Feasa ar Éirinn in 1634) that the true identity of the Old English was now Roman Catholic and Irish, rather than English. English policy thus hastened the assimilation of the Old English with the Gaels.
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In 1641, many of the Old English community made a decisive break with their past as loyal subjects by joining theIrish Rebellion of 1641. Many factors influenced the decision of the Old English to join in the rebellion; among these were fear of the rebels and fear of government reprisals against all Roman Catholics. The main long-term reason was, however, a desire to reverse the anti-Roman Catholic policies that had been pursued by the English authorities over the previous 40 years in carrying out their administration of Ireland. Nevertheless, despite their formation of an Irish government inConfederate Ireland, the Old English identity was still an important division within the Irish Roman Catholic community. During theIrish Confederate Wars (1641–1653), the Old English were often accused by the Gaelic Irish of having been too hasty to sign a treaty with Charles I of England at the expense of the interests of Irish landowners and the Roman Catholic religion. The ensuingCromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649–1653), saw further defeat of the Roman Catholic cause and the almost wholesale dispossession of the Old English nobility leading to a revival of the cause before theWilliamite war in Ireland (1689–1691) evolving into Jacobitism afterwards. Nevertheless, in the 1700s, Parliamentarians had become the dominant class in the country and with the end of the Jacobites in 1788, the Old Anglo-Irish cause evolved into theIrish Rebellion of 1798.Protestant Irish nationalists sometimes found their origins through Old English families (and men of Gaelic origin such asWilliam Conolly) who had chosen to comply with Anglican rule by conforming to theestablished church.
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In the course of the eighteenth century under the Protestant Ascendancy, social divisions were defined almost solely insectarian terms of Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Nonconformist Protestants, rather than ethnic ones. Against the backdrop of thePenal Laws which discriminated against them both, and a country becoming increasinglyParliamentarian, the old distinction between Old English and Gaelic Irish Roman Catholics gradually faded away,
Changing religion and conforming to thestate church was always an option for any of the King of Ireland's subjects, and an open avenue to inclusion in the officially recognised "body politic", and, indeed, many Old English such asEdmund Burke were newly-conforming Anglicans who retained a certain sympathy and understanding for the difficult position of Roman Catholics, as Burke did in his parliamentary career. Others in thegentry such as theViscounts Dillon and theLords Dunsany belonged to Old English families who had originally undergone a religious conversion from Rome to Canterbury to save their lands and titles. Some members of the Old English who had thus gained membership in the Protestant Ascendancy even became adherents of the cause of Irish independence. Whereas the Old English FitzGeraldDukes of Leinster held the premier title in theIrish House of Lords when it was abolished in 1800, a scion of that Ascendancy family, the Irish nationalistLord Edward Fitzgerald, was a brother of the second duke.
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The following is a list ofHiberno-Normansurnames, many of them unique toIreland, and those ofAnglo-Irishnoble families.
For example, the prefixFitz meaning "son of", in surnames likeFitzGerald appears most frequently in Hiberno-Norman surnames (cf.modern French "fils de" with the same meaning).[10] However, a few names with the prefix "Fitz-" soundNorman but are actually of native Gaelic origin;Diarmait mac Máel na mBó of theLyonsUí Dúnchadasept[11] became known asFitzDermot,[12] andFitzPatrick was the surname assumed byBrian Mac Giolla Phádraig underHenry VIII in 1537.[13]
The annals of Ireland make a distinction betweenGaill andSasanaigh. The former were split intoFionnghaill orDubhghaill, depending upon how much the poet wished to flatter his patron.[15]
There are a number of texts in Hiberno-Norman French, most of them administrative (including commercial) or legal, although there are a few literary works as well.[16][17] There is a large amount of parliamentary legislation, including the famousStatute of Kilkenny and municipal documents.
The major literary text isThe Song of Dermot and the Earl, achanson de geste of 3,458 lines of verse concerningDermot McMurrough andRichard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (known as "Strongbow").[18] Other texts include theWalling of New Ross composed about 1275, and early 14th century poems about the customs ofWaterford.
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