The Rock of Dunamase towers dramatically over the plains east of Portlaoise. The
150-foot high limestone hill is crowned with battered fortifications that are
thousands of years old. Romantic ruins include a castle, towers, gatehouse,
curtain walls and battlements. Views from the top are amazing and range from
the bucolic countryside and little church immediately below to the Slieve Bloom
Mountains and Wicklow Mountains.
Fortified since the Bronze Age, Dunamase was
subsequently occupied by the Celts and destroyed by the Vikings in 845. In 1170
it was gifted by Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, to his daughter Aoife as
a portion of her dowry at her marriage to Norman invader Strongbow. After many
different owners down through the ages, Cromwell
finally sacked it in 1650. The trenches from that battle can still be seen
today.
The Rock of Dunamase is a picturesque forgotten place
that is well off the beaten tourist path. Its brooding and impressive aspect
make it well worth exploring and present many interesting photo opportunities. Free
admission.
Please view the Ariel Views of the Rock Of Dunamase filmed by Mountmellick Man Oliver Burke of Compuvision. (See Below)
The old Irish Moores are Ó Mordha, from the word mordha (stately,
noble).The eponymous ancestor Mordha was
twenty-first in descent from Conal Cearnach, the most distinguished of the
heroes of the Red Branch.
The O'Mores were the leading sept of
the Seven Septs of Laois; the other six being tributary to them. According to
Keating, the O'Mores have St. Fintan as their protector. Of thirteen families
of Moore recorded in Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland (1912), twelve
claim to have come to Ireland as settlers from England or Scotland and only one
to be an offshoot of the O'Mores.
Judged by the test of their
resistance to English aggression, the O'Mores may be described as one of the
foremost Irish septs. In this connection particular mention may be made of Rory O'More (died 1557) and his son, Rory Óg O'More (died 1578),
both of whom were distinguished Irish leaders in the wars against the Tudor
sovereigns, and another Rory O'More, a member of the Laois sept, the head of
the 1641 Rising and a staunch ally of Owen Roe O'Neill in the subsequent war. It is of interest to note that he was known in English as
Moore as well as O'More.
The
Ulster Plantation
Within
a decade of the ‘Flight of the Earls’ came the Ulster Plantation. It was the
excuse needed for the wholesale robbing of the clans. That the lands belonged
to the whole clan community was of no consequence to the English. According to
English law and custom it should belong to the lords (chiefs). The English Lord
Lieutenant, Sir Arthur Chichester, and the Attorney General, Sir John Davies,
were the instruments , for giving effect to the great Plantation. The natives
were driven to the bogs and the moors where it was hoped that they would starve
to death. The conditions upon which the new people got their land bound them to
repress and abhor the Irish natives , admit no Irish customs, never to
intermarry with the Irish, and not to permit any Irish on their lands. As a
result many of the Irish starved to death. Many others sailed away and enlisted
under continental armies.
The
Rising of 1641
The
Irish were not content to starve and die upon the moors. The Rising of 1641 was
the natural outcome of this great wrong. Rory O’Moore is
chiefly credited for this great resurgence of the Irish race. For years he
patiently worked among the leading Irish families, Irish Generals in the
Continental armies, and other Irish representatives in the European countries.
Plans being matured, the Rising broke in Ulster on the night of the 21st
October 1641. Practically in one night they reconquered their province, having
sent the Planters scurrying into the few Ulster cities that they still could
hold. It was Ulster only that had risen that night - the other quarters
remained quiet due to a miscarriage of plans and through a traitor. For the
purpose of inciting the English at home , the English invented stories of
massacres and Irish cruelty - many of which are still believed today. The
fearful cruelties perpetrated by Sir Charles Coote, leader of the English army
in Leinster, and by St Leger, English commander in Munster, combined with fear
for themselves and their estates, drove the Anglo-Irish Catholic lords and
their fellows in Munster to join the Rebellion. When the great and historic
Synod met in Kilkenny in May ’42, the Irish practically owned Ireland, English
power merely clinging by its teeth to some outer corners of the country.
The
War of the ‘Forties
The
Confederation of Kilkenny proved to be perhaps more of a curse than a blessing
to Ireland.
The establishing of the Confederation was the establishing of a
Parliament in Ireland. In England Charles and his Parliamentary Government were
now at bitter odds - beginning the great civil conflict there. They manacled,
and thwarted the great Irish figure of the Forties - the truly admirable man
and signally great military leader, Owen
Roe O’Neill. With Owen Roe’s coming arose Ireland’s bright star of hope -
and with his passing, that star set. Owen Roe was a nephew of Hugh O’Neill,
‘Earl of Tyrone’, who fled at the century’s beginning, and had died abroad. Owen Roe was a young man at the time of the Flight of the
Earls, had fought in that last disastrous fight at Kinsale and going abroad
also, had won signal distinction as a military commander in the Spanish
Netherlands. He had never ceased to hope that he would yet be the means
of freeing his Fatherland. And through the years in which his sword had been in
the service of Spain, his heart was ever with Ireland. He came to his own
North, when, close following its first bright burst the clouds of despair had
come down, and begun to sit heavy on it again. On the 6th July 1642, with a hundred officers in his company, the
long wished for saviour stepped off a ship and was given command of the
Northern army. So potent was the name and fame of Owen Roe that even while his
army was still in embryo, Lord Levin from Scotland at the head of twenty thousand
men refused to meet such a formidable battler and strategist. In June 1646 he
fought and won his great pitched battle, the famous victory of Benburb. Here he
met and smashed the Scottish General Monroe, who then held the British command
in Ulster. All remaining Scottish forces were, by his signal victory sent
scurrying into the two strongholds of Derry and Carrickfergus. The province was
Owen Roe’s and Ireland’s.
So would the whole country
soon have been - but unfortunately the Supreme Council, flinging away the
golden opportunity, not only signed a peace with Ormond, acting for King
Charles, but went so far as to put under his command all of the Confederate
Catholic Army. Owen Rose hurried south with his forces to overawe the
traitors and try to counteract the harm they had done. But every move made by
Owen Rose, and every combination, was wisely directed toward the great end. Yet
the noble man held steadily to his task, and when eventually Cromwell came like
an avenging angel Owen Roe was the one great commanding figure to which the
awed and wasted nation instinctively turned.
But, as by God’s will it proved,
their turning to him was in vain.
Sinn Féin Mountmellick
- Serving The Community
we went to the rock of dunamase on Saturday and recorded this hope you like it, feel free to share it, — with Tommy Thompson and Laura Maher atThe Rock Of Dunamase.
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