IN his Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, Professor O'Curry deals exhaustively with our ancient military organisation and weapons. Mr. Joseph C. Walker, M.R.I.A., etc., in Historical Essay on the dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish, to which is subjoined a Memoir on the Armour and weapons or the Irish, Dublin 1788, has developed the same subject as appearing in later times.
Scattered through many of the old English writers' works on Ireland will be found descriptions of the national mode of warfare, but I transcribe the following as being at once the most complete and succinct of the descriptions of the period of our narrative.
Dymmok's treatise was written in 1600, and applies to the campaign of 1599. It is printed in Tracts relating to Ireland, published by the Ir. Arch. Society., vol. ii., Dub., 1843. He says (pp. 7-8):
Theire forces consist of thre sortes, Horsemen, Gallowglass and Kerne.
The horsemen are armed with headpecces, shirtes of mayle or jackes, a sworde, a skayne, and a speare. They ryde vyon paddes or pillowes without styrvps, and in this differ from ours: that in joyninge with the enemy, they beare not their staves or launces vnder arme, and so put it to the reste, but taking yt by the midle, beare yt aboue arme, and soe encounter.
Every Horseman hath two or thre horses, and to euery horse a knave: his horse of service is allwaies led spare, and his knave, which caryeth his harness and speare, rydeth upon the other, or els upon a hackeney.
The Gallowglass ar pycked and scelected men of great and mightie bodies, crewell without compassion. The greatest force of the battell consisteth in them, chosing rather to dye than to yeelde, so that when yt cometh to handy blowes they are quickly slayne or win the fielde. They are armed with a shert of maile, a skull, and a skeine: the weapon they most vse is a batle axe, or halbert, six
foote longe, the blade whereof is somewhat like a shomaker's knyfe, and without pyke; the stroake whereof is deadly where yt lighteth. And beinge thus armed, reckoninge to him a man for his harnesse bearer, and a boye to carry his provision, he is named a spare of his weapon so called, 80 of which spares make a battell of Gallowglass.The kerne is a kinde of footeman, sleightly armed with a sworde, a targett of woode, or a bow and a sheafe of arrows with barbed heades, or els 3 dartes, which they cast with a wonderfull facility and nearnes, a weapon more noysom to the enemy, especially horsemen, then yt is deadly; within theise few years they have practized the muskett and callyver, and are growne good and ready shott. Some will have the Dalonyes or horseboys to be a fourth sorte for that they take them into the fight; they are the very skumme and outcaste of the countrye, and not less serviceable in the campe for meatinge and dressinge of horses, then hurtfull to the enemy with their dartes.
Appended to Dymmok's Treatice, is an interesting old State paper of 17th November, 1568, on the wages and entreteynment of every sparre of her Majesties Gallowglasses oughte to be. Here every sparre or speare (Hastatus in O'Sullivan) is reckoned two men. The number of men in a battalion or 'battell' varied. This old paper gives the numbers and pay of the Gallowglasses cessed on the different 'countries.'
The skeine was, according to Walker, a dagger (p. 119); sgian is now a common word for a knife.
The poet Spenser gives a short description of Irish arms, in his View of the State of Ireland (Thom's Tracts, I., 479-80), and O'Clery, one of the Four Masters, in his life of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, incidentally gives us an insight into the weapons, etc., then in use. (See Father Murphy's translation, pp. 65, 73, 99, 101, 143, 153, 211-7). See also Pacata Hibernia, pp. 150, 237, 345.
The Irish often flung their skeines ( Pac. Hib., 45), and had thongs attached to their javelins, whereby they might recover them after casting ( Miscel. Celtic Soc. 303). Don Juan remarked that the Irish horses were small ( Pac. Hib., 345), but Derrick, writing in 1578, praises the ‘gallant stouryng steede’ (p. 39).
The following passage relating to an Irish army in 1598, taken from the Life of O'Donnell, (pp. 167-9), may, I think, be added to Dymmok's account: —
‘The weapons and dress of these were different, for the Irish did not wear armour like them (i.e., the English),
And here is a description of a battle in 1599; ‘When they came near each other the Irish discharged against them terrible showers of beautiful ash-handled javelins and swarms of sharp-pointed, whizzing arrows from their long, elastic bows, and volleys of blood-red spherical balls and leaden bullets from their straight-shooting, sharp-sighted guns. They were responded to by the English soldiers in the same way exactly with sharp-wounding leaden balls from their iron-lock guns, and their far-sounding muskets,’ etc., etc. ( Life of O'Donnell, p. 217).
The Kernes have not been without their Fenimore Cooper, and Mr. Small has, in recent years (1883), republished A Discouerie of Woodkarne by John Derricke, 1581, with all the original plates and quaint versified legends.
The first plate shows a horseman, his knave, boy and steed;
- Wherein is bravely paynted forth, a nat'rall Irish grace,
Whose like in eu'ry poynt to vewe hath seldome stept in place.
Amongst the military engines used in attacking fortified places, one of the most usual at this period was that known as the sow. The following quaint description of a 'sow' is taken from Maurice Cuffe's account of his gallant defence of Ballyally Castle in 1641, published by Crofton Croker in Narratives Illustrative of the Contests in Ireland in 1641 and 1690, amongst Camden Society's publications (Lon. 1841, p. 17). It reads refreshingly like Caesar's description of Testudo:— ‘The great sow was 35 foote long and 9 foote broade; it was made upon 4 wheeles mad of whole timbar, bound aboutt with hoopes of iron, there axell trees where one she was run was great round bars of iron, the beames she was bult upon being of timbar. Thaie had cros beames
Mr. Croker thought it necessary to gild this gem with a note (p. 114.) The engine called a sow was at this time well known in Munster and in constant use. ( Pacata Hib., Dub., 1820, p. 124).
For illustrations and descriptions of Gabions, see Lieut. General Sir Charles W. Pasley's Rules for Operations of a Siege 3 Ed. London, 1857. See also Pacata Hibernia, pp. 116, 563, etc., and plan of Glin Castle, where several gabions (wicker-work pillars) are representing flanking cannon.
Fynes Moryson, the secretary of Lord Mountjoy, and who has written an exhaustive account of his master's Irish campaigne, says of the Irish soldiers:—‘The Irish kerne were at the first rude soldiers, so as two or three of them were imployed to discharge one Pieece, and hitherto they have subsisted especially by trecherous tenders of submission, but now they were growne ready in managing their Peeces, and bold to skirmish in bogges and wooddy passages, yea, this yeere and the next following, became so disasterous to the English, and successful in action to the Irish, as they shaked the English Government in this Kingdome, till it tottered, and wanted little of fatall ruine.’ (I. i., 24.)
Writing to the Queen on the 25th June, 1599, Mountjoy himself says:—‘These Rebels are more in number than your Majesties Army, and have (though I doe unwillingly confess it) better bodies, and perfecter use of their Armes, then those men which your Majestie sends over.’ (I. i., 36.)
On the 5th June, 1602, Lord Mountjoy wrote to the English privy Council:—‘At my first arrival, I found the rebels more in number than at any time they had bin since the conquest, and those so farre from being naked people, as before times, that they were generally better armed then we, knew better the use of their weapons then our men, and even exceeded us in that discipline, which was fittest for the advantage of the naturall strength of the country, for that they being very many, and expert shot, and excelling in footmanship all other nations. In regard whereof I presumed that man's wit could hardly find out any other course to overcome them, but by famine.’ (Id. III., i., 2 11.) Mountjoy also speaks of their ‘good art and admirable industry,’ in raising fortifications. (Id. III, i., 213.)
Spencer had advised that famine was the only way to reduce the Irish, and Mountjoy adopted this as his policy. He cut down all the corn and burnt and devastated the country, a terribly graphic account of which and of its awful results is given by Fynes Moryson from what he himself saw, and the reports of the captaines.
On the 11th September, 1602, Mountjoy reported to the English Privy Council, ‘wee found everie where men dead of famine, in so much that O'Hagan protested unto us, that betweene Tullogh Oge and Toome there lay unburied a thousand dead, and that since our first drawinge this yeere to Blackwater, there were above three thousand starved in Tyrone.’ III, i., 237-8. See also Fynes Moryson's account, III, i., 271. 258 et alibi.