3 - Scots, Castilians, and Other Enemies : Piracy in the Late Medieval Irish Sea World

Summary

Abstract

Despite growing interest in Late Medieval Ireland's maritime heritage, little attention has been devoted to exploring the problem of piracy in this period. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries not only witnessed a rise in attacks by Gaelic Irish marauders on English settlements in Ireland, the period also saw French, Scottish, and Castilian rovers raid English holdings from Ulster to Kinsale. This chapter explores the factors precipitating the rise in marine predation during this period. In particular, it considers the range of different contexts for piracy and explores the economic and plunder-based reasons for piracy as well as the wider context of the Hundred Years War and French and Scottish attempts to open new military fronts against the English in Ireland.

Keywords: Gaelic Ireland; Gaelic Scotland; Irish Sea World; Fishing; Hundred Years War

Introduction

The famous seventeenth-century history of Ireland known as the Annals of the Four Masters records a curious incident under the year 1453. The precise time of year is not revealed, but the text notes that a fleet of Breton raiders descended upon Dublin Bay. The English fleet was burned by the marauders and the English archbishop of Dublin, Michael Tregury (d.1471), was captured before being whisked away by the raiders who sailed northwards. The ensuing course of events is not clear, but a rescue mission appears to have been launched by the Anglo-Irish citizens of Dublin. A fleet soon departed the colonial capital, intercepted the Bretons, and recovered Tregury. Although the archbishop was rescued, in general he appears to have been plagued by misfortune during his career in Ireland. Two years earlier, while travelling to Ireland to assume his post, Tregury was shipwrecked, losing most of his possessions. Several years later in 1461, Tregury was taken captive once again, this time by the Ui Bhroin dynasty of Wicklow and the Haralds of south Dublin—a lineage who were descended from earlier Viking raiders and settlers.

The series of unfortunate events surrounding Archbishop Tregury's career in Ireland highlights the dangers of both marine predation and travel by sea in the later medieval period. The Breton raid of 1453 was not unusual in itself nor was Dublin the only English town in Ireland to fall victim to maritime raids during the later Middle Ages.