John De Courcy: Prince of Ulster

by Steve Flanders

John de Courcy was a Knight of noble birth but bleak prospects. He fought his way to the notice of Henry II who laughingly granted him Ulster "provided he could conquer it by force". John won his chance at the Battle of Downpatrick in 1177 and ruled his Norman lordship from Carrickfergus Castle until his demise at the hands of King John.

128 pages, Paperback

Published February 25, 2015

Reviews

[Ciaran Mcgrath · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slim volume covering the life and times of one of the more colourful figures of Irish history, this is both informative and frustrating. Informative because it gathers up the slim historical evidence for John DeCourcy's life and presents him in ample context for that life. Frustrating because the writing has a tendency to jump back and forth through time, repeating itself on multiple occasions and more than once introducing a characters (most notably John's wife) before getting around to explaining who they are. If you're at all interested in DeCourcy or the history of Ulster, this is worth a read, but for all its brevity, it feels padded.

[T.O. Munro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up in the gift shop at John De Courcy's great stronghold of Carrickfergus Castle.

Having just finished Richard Lomas's The Normans in Ireland about the Strongbow and William The Marshall's overlordship of the Liberty of Leinster, it seemed timely to dig a little deeper into the history of Normans at the other end of the Island of Ireland.

Flanders account is thorough, though at times it feels a little repetitious as each chapter includes some reiteration (reinforcement?) of themes/ideas from the previous ones. Nonetheless the tale is comprehensive, well told and captures both the spirit of this singular Norman adventurer, and something of the zeitgeist of the times he lived in.

It's interesting to see Flanders draw parallels with William the Conqueror's huge gamble in taking on England, while also emphasising (as Lomas did) how the nature of Ireland was so different with many minor kings such that de Courcy could carve out a principality on a more modest scale than the Conqueror's, and with a force of just two dozen armoured knights (plus men at arms, archers and skirmshers).

The etymology of castle names is also interesting. Having recently visited the Chateau de Rochfoucauld In Charentes and found it was literally the castle of the rock of Foucauld, there was a symmetry in discovering that Carrickfergus castle is literally the castle of the rock of Fergus.

While his contemporary William The Marshall's overlordship of Leinster covered three generations of Normans from William's father in law Strongbow to his five childless sons, de Courcy's rule of Ulster (East of the Bann) lasted a long but single generation. Beginning in 1177 with his victory at the hill of Down over king Rory MacDunlevey, it ended with his deposition by King John in 1205, as the brother of the Lionheart sought to rein in the insubordinate and independent instincts of his marcher lord.

Like Lomas's book, Flanders gives interesting insights into the workings of Norman society with family, patronage the dispensing of justice being the main obligations within feudal organisation. It's interesting and instructive to reflect on how alien that way of life is to us, where - in the absence of a welfare state or a central government that permeated all the way down to individual villages - it was all about who you knew and what you could take and hold.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3247282.html

A very short book about the Norman knight who conquered "Ulster", or rather most of what is now County Down and County Antrim, in the late twelfth century. It's very good on the details of the de Courcy lineage and family holdings in France and England, which goes some way to explaining the drive to expand the family domains. The military details of the crucial capture of Downpatrick in 1177 are examined at length, and lots of other bits and pieces are thrown in, particularly on the record of de Courcy's military patronage and shifting of the centre of gravity of the Ulster lordship to Carrickfergus from Downpatrick.

But lots is left out as well. There is nothing about the attempted mediation role of Cardinal Vivian in the Downpatrick attack, though it's a major part of the narrative in contemporary chronicles. The dramatic story of de Courcy being captured while attending church in 1204 is skipped over. We don't get anything about how the new Norman rulers were able to displace the former Irish chieftains so quickly and so comprehensively. I also think there is a story to be told about de Courcy's wife, Affreca, the daughter of the King of the Isle of Man, and the fact that almost all of the Anglo-Norman fortifications of the Lordship of Ulster are so close to the sea.

It's also frustrating that no sources are given (though at least there are some good maps). Flanders has done some delving into the surviving charters and other records, but unfortunately hasn't shown his work. I learned a couple of things from this, but basically T.E. MacNeil's Anglo-Norman Ulster has far more information and is just as digestible.

[Joyce Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of facts about a time in Irish/Ulster history that I knew very little about, despite the fact that N Ireland is littered with solid stone relics of the first Norman invaders.
The delivery was dry but easily understood.