Co. Carlow

[7 baronies] Anciently cited to be inhabited by the Brigantes and Cauci (by Ptolemy) or by the Coriundi (by Whitaker). The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe which lived between Tyne and Humber of a smaller tribal groups including the Carvetii of Cumbria and Lancashire in the northwest and Iron Age Parisii that lived on the banks of the river Seine in Latin, Sequana. With the Suessiones, the Parisii participated in the general rising of Vercingetorix against Julius Caesar in 52 B.C. During the Roman invasion of AD 43 the Brigantes were arguably the most powerful Celtic tribe in Britain, dominating the north of the country. Brigante settlements were to be found at Catterick, Aldborough, Ilkley and York.

The Roman tribes and the Picts and Celts moved south into the lowlands, re-establishing their forts and farms, and the Romans sent sorties north from their bases at Carlisle and Newcastle. In 121AD, during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the fighting between the two nations had become such a problem to the Romans that they felt northern properties were in danger to Pictish raids. Hadrian ordered the construction of a stone wall, 72 miles long from Carlisle on the west coast to Newcastle on the east coast.

Brigantes (Britain)

Hadrian's Wall is an enduring monument to the Roman occupation of Caledonia and northern Britannia and the resistance of its people. A new wall was constructed in the early 140s, named after the emperor Antonius Pius. Sometime around 154 AD, there was a southern revolt, possibly by the Brigantes, and units of the Roman garrison were withdrawn to the south. The Wall of Antonius, an ancient Roman wall extending across North Britain from the Firth of Forth to the Firth of Clyde. Indeed the name 'Brigantes' is translated as 'The People of Brigit'. The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155-157, when the Brigantes revolted. During the twenty yeare period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall, Rome was concerned with continental issues primarily problems in the Danube provinces.

 

  • O Nuallain (O'Nolan) were Princes of Fotharta, the root name for the barony of Forth. They were of the sept of the Fotharta of Mag Fea

  • Vortigern- before 500 AD, many Scots from Ireland infiltrated into the areas of Wales, Cornwall, Strathclyde, and became a dominant element in parts of South Wales (Powys, Ely) but moving in force into southern Scotland with an area of (Pictland, Picatvium/Poitiers, or Fortriu) identified with Argyleshire, Dalriada. It was then that Strathclyde occupied the northeast with the Scots and Picts on the north across the Forth, and pagan Angles of Northumbria to the east and south. At its greatest the kingdom of Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Forth. Colne or West Riding came under Northumbrian and then Viking rule. The Picts had recovered their corn lands on the south of the Forth.

  • Prince Kentigern / St. Kentigern Garthwys (abt. 528-614), was the fruit of King Owein and Princess Thaney the daughter of a king of Lothian. Thaney set adrift in a coracle which takes her to Culros on the north shore of the Forth and there St. Kentigern is norn in a wood. Under his nickname of Mungo (Dear Fellow) in Scotland, he was brought up by St. Serf in Culross (Fife); a missionary north of the Forth.

  • The King's Highway- At its greatest the kingdom Northumbria extended from the Humber to the Forth. The later earldom (Fearchar mac an t-sagairt) was bounded by the River Tees in the south and the River Tweed in the north (broadly similar to the modern North East England) and was recognised as part of England by the Anglo-Scottish Treaty of York in 1237...

Idrone (West)
  • O'Riain (Ryan), Lords of Uí Drona, are cited here.

  • Following the Norman Invasion the Kavanaghs, descendants of the MacMurrough clan, held this territory then known as Hy Cabanagh or Uí Cavenagh. Powerscourt, Wicklow. The Úí Cheinnselaig broke the power of Úí Bairrche by seizing the Slaney valley from Rathvilly to Tullow, thereby separating the Úí Bairrche of north Carlow from those of southern Wexford. Dermot MacMurrough was the Irish King of Leinster who succeeded his father Enna's throne in 1126. In 1153 MacMurrough abducted the wife (Dearvorgil) of Tiernan O'Ruark, king of Breifne (the modern counties of Leitrim and Cavan). MacMurrough fled to England and immediately went to King Henry II who granted permission for the exiled ruler to enlist the aid of several Anglo-Norman lords, in particular Richard Strongbow de Clare. In 1155, Henry II sent an embassy to the English pope, Hadrian IV to obtain sanction for expanding sway into Ireland. Dermot MacMurrough, when worsted by the king of Connacht, fled to Bristol and then crossed to France. From Wiltshire, John of Salisbury was one of those sent by Henry II to the petitioned destination of Hadrian IV. Savigniac Order. The Cistercians were the first of the medieval orders (Danelaw) to set up in Ireland, when St Malachy set up an abbey at Mellifont in 1142. (Abbeyshrule)

Rathvilly

St. Mullin's (Lower)
  • The ancient land of the Uí Drona was centered here in the 8th century.

St. Mullin's (Upper)
  • Very early this area was referred to as Fearann Úí Néill, or the country of Farren O'Neale, lords of Tully. This may refer to the Ó Neill sept of Magh dá chonn in Leinster.

 

 

  • North Yorkshire had both a Roman and Viking history as being the capital of its kings when Deira continued to have an Anglian king. The wild Gallaecian Celts make their entry in written history in the 1st-century epic Punica of Silius Italicus on the First Punic War. The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155-157, when the Brigantes revolted. Roman troops were garrisoned at York for more than 300 years. While Severus was in York, it became the capital of the province of Britannia Inferior. The Brigantes dominated what is now northern England, with settlements at Catterick, Aldborough, Ilkley and York. The Picts and Brigantes are two of the oldest pre-Roman inhabitants of Great Britain. Both inhabited and battled the Romans and each other for the lands of Northern England and Scotland. British Celtic Nobles Of the Early Roman Era
  • Colman, son of Lenin, lived from 522 to 604 A.D. He had been a poet and bard at the court of Caomh, King of Munster at Cashel. It was St. Brendan of Clonfert that induced Colman to become Christian. St. Brendan saw an 'Island of Sheep' and a 'Paradise of Birds', which some say could be the Faroes with its dense bird population and sheep. The monk Fidelis who (762) journeyed along the canal then still existing, between the Nile and the Red Sea; from clerics who had lived in Iceland for six months. From about 795, Irish monks reach Iceland from the Faroes, were brought by Vikings or stayed in the Faroes.
  • Through Cathaír Mor's son, Daire Barrach, is claimed to descend the Uí Bairrche (e.g. O'Gorman, Ua Treasigh) of Laois, Kilkenny. During the ascendancy of the Úí Dúnlainge in th 5th and 6th centuries, the Úí Enechglaiss were driven across the Wicklow mountains, to south of Arklow in county Wicklow, from their original holdings near the plains Brega and the river Liffey. The original Úí Bairrche are said to be related to the Brigantes tribe of northern Britain (Tipperary-Waterford) and that they ruled southern Leinster from the earliest centuries A.D. until their power was broken by the Uí Cheinnselaig.
  • The name Colne is of Celtic origin. It is currently thought to have been founded around the 1st to 4th centuries BC by the Brigantes. It was located along the Trans-Pennine ridgeway, a major trade route dating back to the Bronze Age. The Colne Valley crosses the Pennines in West Yorkshire an unbroken range stretching from the Peak District in the Midlands, through the Yorkshire Dales and West Pennine Moors of Lancashire and Cumbrian Fells to the Cheviot Hills on the Scottish border. The term West Riding usually refers to the West Riding of Yorkshire in England, though Lindsey also possesses a West Riding.
  • (Middle Irish) From the coast of Bernicia on the Firth of Forth to the shores of Essex on the Thames, there existed an Augustinian fraternity of churches and monasteries looking toward Lindisfarne and the Celtic religious world beyond. Inchcolm (Scottish Gaelic: Innis Choluim - Island of Columba) is an island in the Firth of Forth, east of the Forth Bridge, south of Aberdour, Fife, and north of the City of Edinburgh in Scotland. The main feature of the island is the former Augustinian Inchcolm Abbey, Scotland's most complete surviving example of a monastic house.
  • In 1054, Siward, the Danish earl of Northumbria, had close connection of the family of Duncan, led an army into Scotland against Macbeth, in the interests of Duncan's son, Malcolm, and perhaps at the instance of Edward, King of England. Although not then successful in recovering the central kingdom, Siward succeeded in confirming Malcolm as ruler of all that portion of Scotland south of the Clyde and Forth. MacBeth was the ruler of the southern districts and Thorfin was ruler of the Northern Districts. Mac Ruaidri, from Ruaidhri Earl of Moray, was the father of Finlay, and grandfather of MacBeth.
  • Major rivers that drain into the North Sea include the Forth (at Edinburgh), Elbe (at Cuxhaven), the Weser (at Bremerhaven), the Ems at Emden, the Rhine and Meuse (at Rotterdam), the Scheldt (at Flushing), the Thames, and the Humber (at Hull). The Kiel Canal, one of the world's busiest artificial waterways, connects the North Sea with the Baltic.