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Chapter Five 155
during that time he did not scruple to use his army and by doing so he curbed the power of some of his barons, organised a regular system of government, and commissioned a strong castle to be built in Dublin, a castle which remained the centre of foreign government in Ireland until 1921. As a result, John is often called ‘the founder of Anglo-Ireland.’
In the short space of less than eighty years, the Normans had succeeded in bringing more than two-thirds of Ireland under their control.
It is probably true to say that Norman power in Ireland reached its zenith about the year 1250. By that time, however, the Irish had well realised the terrible consequences of having meekly accepted the invaders. But this being said, they had also learned much of the mili- tary science of their enemies, and had themselves begun to build stone castles of the Nor- man type, because it was now abundantly clear to them that armed resistance was their one and only protection. The irst success of the new spirit of Irish resistance was the defeat of the Normans at the Battle of Credren in county Sligo, in 1257, and the subsequent sacking and destruction of their strong castle at Beleek, in county Fermanagh.
Despite some setbacks, the Irish won several other victories, including great battles fought at Kenmare in county Kerry and Dysart in county Clare, and while it is true to say that at this time the Irish were gradually growing stronger, it is also true to say that they suf- fered especially from the disadvantage of having no standing army, as no ighting force had been maintained on a permanent footing in the country since the time of the Fianna. The Irish kings and princes had to rely on armies composed of their own subjects, who served only for short campaigns, and then returned home again. Unsurprisingly, they soon realized that their own ighting men could not be expected to cope or compete consistently with the professional Norman soldiers. It is told that the northern kings were the irst to see the ad- vantage of having a standing army, and they were also the irst to import and employ bands of paid Gallóglaigh-professional soldiers.
Clad in helmets and coats of mail, and wielding mighty battle-axes, these Gallóglaigh, or ‘Gallowglasses’ as these mercenaries were called, came mostly from the isles and western coast of Scotland. They were irst-class ighters, well versed in the squalid menace of war. From 1258 to 1603 the chiefs of Connacht and Munster, like their Ulster counterparts, and their Norman enemies, also employed great numbers of these ighters, to whose help may be attributed much of the success achieved by the Irish during that period. It is often said that as a direct result of the introduction of these Gallowglasses the incastellation of the