From Ballyboyle to Corglass... a Boyle family's story
Part 1 - Ballyboyle - our ancient ancestors
Territories: the arrival of the Mac Suibhne mercenaries
How and why the O’Boyles were removed from their traditional territory is unclear, but it is known that they were replaced by the MacSweeney (Mac Suibhne) clan of Scottish mercenary soldiers imported by the O’Donnells to consolidate their dominant position. Initially these would have been billeted on the local population as part of the duties owed to the overlord. However, as they became more indispensable and powerful they demanded and got their own land.
Unfortunately for the O’Boyles, it was their land that was given to the MacSweeneys. “This territory was the O’Boyles’, but MacSweeneys were settled here with the consent of the O’Donnells, who desired to have them in Tir Conaill as a strong fighting force…they often hired themselves as warriors out of their own territory”[Biggar, 1908].
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Initially, the Three Tuatha were taken over by the branch that became known as MacSweeney Doe (Mac Suibhne na dTuath). About 1500 another branch of the MacSweeneys, who had been based in Connacht, gained control of the south-western portion of Tír Boghaine, and hence became known as MacSweeney Banagh (Mac Suibhne Boghaine).
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It was not uncommon for an overlord to re-locate his sub-kings to a new territory, but it must nevertheless have involved a distinct loss of power and status for the O’Boyles. Whether the O’Boyles had any say in this is not recorded, and it may have been taken from them by conquest[1]. The arrival of the MacSweeney is described as a “drastic example of an overlord’s imposition of foreign rulers on sub-kingdoms within his own territory… Three branches – later known as Doe, Fanad and Banagh - of this family from Argyle were installed successively in the course of the 14th and 15th centuries in exchange for well-defined contracts of military service and tribute”[Simms, K (2020), p.246]. The take-over is unlikely to have been peaceful - some unverifiable stories tell that the Breslin sept who inhabited Fanad were ruthlessly massacred by the MacSweeney in order to occupy their territory.
By the early 16th century, the O’Boyle lordship had shrunk to the territory shown on the map. Was it as punishment for some act of disloyalty, or did the O’Boyles back the wrong horse in the race for leadership of the O’Donnell clan? The Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne, a history of the MacSweeneys written in the 16th century does not even mention the O’Boyles as previous lords, nor anything about how they were ousted.
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Whatever the means used to dislodge them from their customary lands, by the end of the sixteenth century, the expansion of the MacSweeneys had reduced Boylagh, the patrimony of the O’Boyles, to a third of its original size.[Morgan, H. (1999) p.116]
Sir Henry Sidney later saw the relations between Gaelic overlords and their subjects as tyrannical; he describes Shane O’Neill’s attempt to conquer O’Donnell’s country, which:
“he totally tyrannized, possessing all his castells, which were many and strong, and put under his subjection al the potentates of the same domynion, namely O'Dogherty, O'Boyle, O'Galtoghare, the three grand Captayns of Galloglass called Mackswynes of Fanat, Baniogh, and Ne Do, all which he either held in prison, or lett out, detayninge their best hostages”[2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Sweeney, reference link broken.
[2] Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of His Government of Ireland. 1583
Lordships of North-west Ireland in the early 16th century
(by K.W. Nicholls, in Moody. Martin & Byrne, A New History of Ireland, Vol 3.Oxford University Press)
MacLysaght[1] claims that the O’Boyles had retained an inauguration site in Na dTri Tuatha, at Cloghineely even after they were dislodged from this region in the 14th century. However, he offers no evidence for this, and others doubt it: “While the head of the Ó Baoighill family was indeed styled taoiseach of Cloch Cheann Fhaoladh in several texts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there is no evidence identifying this precise inauguration venue. MacLysaght may have had in mind Ceann Faoladh's famous cloch, a large white boulder with a red crystalline vein, from which the surrounding district took its name. No substantiation, though, was ever provided in support of his assertion” [Ó Canann, TG. ( 2003), pp. 36–67]
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In a society where the productive capacity of land was the basis of wealth, the reduction in area might not have mattered if their new territory was better quality. But it was not. A description of part of this region states that “Lowland available for settlement is restricted to peripheral areas – some promontories, lowland at the head of a few bays, and flat ground along the lower reaches of the river valleys…separated from each other by mountain ridges…The unsuitability of most of the land for permanent settlement is still apparent three centuries later.”[Graham, J M (1970) ]
[1] Edward MacLysaght, formerly Chief Herald of Ireland and an authority on Irish genealogy and surnames. However, he sometimes made sweeping generalisations without much evidence.
Who were the Galloglass?
From the Irish ‘galloglach’, meaning ‘young foreign warrior’ these Norse-Scottish mercenaries were an important feature of the Irish military scene from the mid-1200s up to the end of the Gaelic order in 1600. Ireland and the west of Scotland formed a cultural unit at this time, with a common language and social structure and relatively easy communications by sea. But there was also a strong Norse element in the Scots though settlement and intermarriage, and the Vikings had bequeathed superior technology and fighting methods to them.
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The Scottish wars of independence led to the displacement of some clans, and having lost their lands, they made themselves available for hire to the Irish chiefs who were facing threats from the Anglo-Normans and their own dynastic challengers. Irish soldiery was lightly armed and sought advantage in ambush and quick skirmish, preferably in wooded and boggy terrain. Gallowglass, in chain-mail armour and iron helmets and armed with battle-axes and broadswords were better suited to offensive actions and pitched battles. The fact that they were ‘foreign’ was also an attraction for Irish chefs; they were less involved in local feuds, and as long as they were rewarded, their loyalty could be relied on, whereas the flimsy alliances among the Irish septs could unravel without warning, under the pressure of conflicting loyalties, opportunistic ambitions and Anglo-Norman scheming.
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Initially employed seasonally, many galloglass clans (of which there were about 60 by 1500) began to settle and were rewarded with land for their services, in some cases becoming Chiefs in their own right. McSweeneys, McCabes and McDonalds are just a few of the names that indicate a galloglass origin.
A detail of Donegal from Goghe’s map of 1567 (with west at the top) shows the three Mc Swyny branches (with their characteristic battle-axes) with the O’Buyle pushed further south.