Commonly moved to war

“The war between the Geraldines and Walter de Burgh, Earl of Ulster.”

 - John Clyn’s Annals of Ireland for the year 1264

At the end of 1264 the Geraldines and de Burghs were at war. At first the conflict was limited to Connacht, where the Geraldines held prisoners in the castles of Lea and Dunamase, while Walter de Burgh attacked and seized Geraldine castles and manors.

Dunamase castle

The war quickly became more widespread. Geoffrey Geneville, justiciar of Ireland while his colleague Richard de la Rochelle was a Geraldine prisoner, prepared Dublin Castle to withstand a siege. He spent a total of £342 on improving its defences, while the royal castle at Arklow was similarly provisioned. Geneville wrote to the king, informing him that ‘the land was commonly moved to war’ and ‘there was common war in those parts’.

The alarm of the English government is exposed in letters of 16 February 1265, which asked the archbishop of Dublin to deal with ‘the discord between the nobles and magnates of that land, whereby great danger may ensue to the king and Edward his son and the whole land of Ireland’. He was also commanded to take the king’s castles into his hand and munition them. The archbishop sent a bleak report back to London, describing the ‘great dissensions’ in Ireland.

By the late spring of 1265 the whole country was in a state of civil war. This grim situation was rescued by Geneville, who raised an army to march against the Geraldines. Geneville’s show of force persuaded the dissidents to come to terms, and in mid-April the rival parties agreed to meet at Dublin to discuss peace terms. They agreed to a set of ordinances whereby all persons ‘disseised and expelled from their lands and tenements during the aforesaid disturbances shall recover their lands and tenements without writ or plea’.

The agreement severed the alliance of the Geraldines with Simon de Montfort - the Geraldines had never been more than skin-deep allies anyway - and released the Anglo-Irish nobles of Ireland to cross the sea and join Prince Edward in time for the battle of Evesham. Geneville’s pacification of Ireland, therefore, had a direct influence on the course of the civil war in England.