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Scottish Ghosts and Myths

By the time that Edward Bruce arrived in 1315, there was an entrenched English colony in eastern Ireland. But the native Irish kings and much of their way of life had managed to hold on in the centre and west of the country - taking advantage of the chaos of English politics in the middle of the twelfth century. So there was reason for the Bruces to hope that their clarion call to revolt would be heard loud and clear and that oppressed Ireland would rush to their banner to evict the imperial conquerors, much as they had done in Scotland. Together the Gaelic brothers would rid Caledonia and Hibernia of the English scourge. And the two Bruces - Robert in Edinburgh and a King Edward in Dublin would rule the Irish Sea.

This is not what happened. And perhaps it served them right. For all their ringing national rhetoric, some of it undoubtedly sincere, Robert and Edward Bruce were transparently using Ireland to force the English to divert resources away from Scotland to this second front, and to make them accept their claim to the crown in Scotland. That, in the end they didn't give two hoots about Ireland was obvious when in return for the English government (now in the hands of Queen Isabella and the lord Mortimer) recognising the independence of Scotland, King Robert promised that he would never aid any rebellion against the English in Ireland. So much for the Gaelic brotherhood of nations!

And perhaps you could have forecast this from what actually happened once Edward Bruce's campaign got under way. For it proceeded with the usual indiscriminate slaughters and burnings - without making any nice distinctions between Gaelic friends and English foes. Perhaps things might have been different had not the years of the Scottish campaigns also been the worst famine in medieval history; so that there was nothing for the Scots soldiers to eat unless they took from the Irish. Which they did.

And even then they were reduced to such desperate straits that it was said by one chronicler that the Scots soldiers dug up freshly made graves to eat the corpses. It was the usual story: a victory over the Ulster English; then a march down towards Dublin. There the inhabitants tore down churches to use the stones to reinforce their walls. So they evidently were far from seeing the Scots as liberators. The city was never taken. Then at an immense and bloody battle between opposed Irish camps in the west, where ten thousand were said to have lost their lives, the pro-Scots side came off worst. In 1318, Edward Bruce was himself was killed in battle at Fochart and by the end of the year the Scots were gone.

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