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- http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/cairney/39.htm
Excerpt from the book of: Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland
An Ethnography of the Gael A.D. 500 - 1750
? C. Thomas Cairney, Ph.D,
You can purchase this book online at Amazon.Com
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Copyright ? 1989 C. Thomas Cairney.
Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland
X. The Vikings and Normans
The Vikings and Normans are ethnically linked because of their commondescent from the Norwegian group of Viking raiders and settlers of theninth to eleventh centuries. The Vikings per se came directly toIreland and Scotland during this period, and in Ireland theyestablished the first towns as coastal trading centers, as merchantactivity was a natural second stage to their original ferocious navalraiding. They became completely Gaelicized. The twelfth centurybrought Anglo-Norman settlers to Scotland, and Anglo-Norman invadersto Ireland. The Normans first appear as mixed Danish and Norwegiansettlers in tenth-century Normandy, a province of France which theseVikings wrested from the French and made a dukedom, and from whichprovince they subsequently invaded England in 1066. Their originalintroduction into the Frankish and Gallo-Roman world in Normandychanged military technology forever, for these acculturated Vikings,afterwards known as Normans, swept forward from Normandy into Englandand later Gaeldom with "Mote and Bailey" castles (where the Gaels hadraided, exacted tribute and then gone back to their own territory, theNormans confounded the Irish by actually squatting on the invaded landwith castles, thus physically denying it to its erstwhile owners). TheNormans also utilized disciplined and armored Frankish-style cavalry,thus introducing the mounted knight. They invaded both England andIreland with similar success, though in the Gaelic area they wereinfluenced as much as they influenced. They eventually became to avery large degree, "more Irish than the Irish," adopting Gaeliclifestyles, language and kinship patterns.
The Norman Families
The Normans came to Ireland mostly from the Welsh Borders, in the wakeof the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169. They came to Scotland asguest-settlers and allies to the Kings of Scots (who prized them fortheir chivalry and for their military and administrative skills)beginning with the reign of David I in the first half of the twelfthcentury (see Chapter IV). They included families of
Norman, Flemish, Welsh and Breton descent, the military aristocracy ofEngland at the time. When these invaders met the disarrayed charge ofthe native Gaelic warriors on the open plains of Ireland, they usuallyswept the Irish from the field with their awesome three-prongedattack: First the deadly flight of arrows from the distant andinvulnerable Welsh crossbowmen, then the organized charge of that "newanimal," the charger-mounted armored knights with their long swords,and finally the follow-through onslaught by unrelenting lines ofdisciplined Flemish infantry. Combine these demonstrations of bold,courageous and creative military innovation with the savvy, pragmaticyet treacherous political machinations of the Normans and their RoyalEnglish masters and you have the result: Within 80 years nearlythree-quarters of Ireland was under Norman control.
The Frenchs (de Freins). The ancestors of the Irish Frenchs were oneof the original Norman families in England, a branch of which settledin County Wexford about 1300. A branch of the Wexford family settledin Galway in the early fifteenth century, where they became one of themore prominent of the tribes of that city. Walter French becameSovereign (Mayor) of Galway in 1444.
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