offalyhistoryblog

The word duel supposedly has its origin in the Latin duellum, roughly translated as a war or battle between two. Ancient history, religious accounts and myth are all full of accounts of Champion Warfare as elite warriors battled for the glory of their respective peoples. When David slew Goliath, Achilles dispatched Hector outside the gates of Troy or when Cu Chulainn faced off against the fighters of Connacht, they were engaging in a form of single combat common across the world.  Later still, during the Middle Ages many European societies condoned ‘Trial by Combat’ as part of their legal system. One of the last examples of such a contest in Ireland occurred at Dublin Castle in 1583.

 A Family Feud, the O’Connors of Uí Fháilghe

For centuries the kingdom of Uí Fháilghe (consisting of the eastern region of modern county Offaly) was ruled by the O’Connor clan. During the 16^th century, the family featured as a regular irritation and occasional ally for English administrators based in Dublin Castle. The situation was further complicated by internal dynastic rivalries within the clan and alliances between the O’Connors and Fitzgerald Earls of Kildare.

The last official great chief of the clan, Brian O’Connor Faly, married the daughter of the Earl of Kildare, engaged in a prolonged struggle for supremacy with his brother Cathaoir, fought in Silken Thomas’s Rebellion and lead numerous raids into the English controlled Pale.

Pardoned by Henry VIII in 1541, he was regranted his lands later in the decade, but rebelled in conjunction with Cathoair and the O’Mores of Laois in 1548. The Gaelic Irish leaders suffered serious reversals. Cathoair was executed in 1549, Giollapádraig O’More died while imprisoned in England and Brian’s political power was diminished. By the time of his own death in the cells of Dublin Castle in 1560, the kingdom of Uí Fháilghe had already on its way to being dismantled.

 In 1556, Parliament passed an act to enable the government to carry out Plantations in O’More and O’Connor territory. As a result, Uí Fháilghe became King’s County, named in honour of King Phillip II of Spain, the husband of Queen Mary I of England.

Despite the major reverses which the O’Connors had suffered, some branches of the family continued to retain importance under the new dispensation. Moreover, the tendency for internal feuding had not entirely abated.

In 1583, Connor McCormac O’Connor alleged that several of his followers had been killed on the orders of Tadhg Gilpatrick O’Connor. In response Tadhg claimed that those killed had collaborated with a noted rebel. The case was referred to the lord justices. Having considered the matter, the Master of the Rolls, Sir Nicholas White suggested that the issue could be resolved by single combat.

So, on the September 12^th a large crowd of legal officials gathered in the inner courtyard of Dublin Castle to view the kinsmen do battle. Having been searched for hidden weapons, both men striped to the waist, shook hands and swore on the bible to refrain from the use of “enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft”. (1) 

The combatants were each armed with a sword and a shield, and the contest was a prolonged one. Badly wounded, Connor McCormac O’Connor attempted to effect a killer blow but overextended himself and lost his footing and was beheaded. (2)

Honour is Everything – Codes duello 

While the notion of a duel to resolve legal issues had already begun to diminish by the time the O’Connors met in Dublin Castle. The idea of single combat as a means to settle disputes involving personal honour would prove to be a more persistent.

The importance of retaining personal honour and responding to any perceived slight was common across the globe. Especially in militarised societies with large numbers of young aristocratic men, but it found particular popularity in Renaissance Italy. It was there that duelling with rapiers first gained widespread popularity and some of the first of the so-called code duello were drawn up. 

These rules, under which duels were fought, were developed in the hope that a well-regulated encounter would restore honour, reduce bloodshed and remove the danger of personal disagreements spiralling into family feuds. 

The offended party issued a challenge to reassert their honour after a perceived slight. The second’s role was to patch up some form of face-saving compromise between the aggrieved parties and falling that to ensure that the duel was fought in a fair manner.

The many duels were fought without serious injury to either side, but the details of such encounters were rarely recorded. So much of what we know about duelling is drawn from fatal confrontations. 

Duels were not designed to end in death, but rather to re-establish the equilibrium amongst the sons of aristocratic families. Nevertheless, deaths did occur, sometimes as the result, distain for proper duelling procedure or the temperament of the combatants and often because of the rudimentary medical skills of the time.  

The rise of duelling corresponded with the demise to of the Gaelic Ireland, the confiscation of large tracts of land and the eventual emergence of the Anglo-Irish landed elite as the great beneficiaries of the Nine Years War, the War of the Three Kingdoms and the Williamite War. It was from such families that duelling would draw its adherents in the century that followed.

The New Order

In 1725 it was reported in the Ipswich Journal…

‘They write from Dublin, that on the 8^th of Aug, a Duel was fought Parsonstown in Kings County, between Michael Moore of Cloghan, of the Said county, esq and Captain John Eyre of Feddan, in county Tipperary; at which were present among several other persons, lieutenant Bagnall, and quartermaster Charles Armstrong; and that the said Moore in the attack, tumbled, fell down, and lost his sword, upon which the said Eyre seized it, and pursued Moore with both swords in order to stab him, which the said Amstrong endeavouring to prevent, and putting his own sword into Moore’s hands to defend himself, the said Eyre run upon Armstrong (naked as he was and no party to the quarrel and stabbed him in the breast, of which he instantly died.’ (3)

Captain Eyre was subsequently acquitted of murder.

The Eyres had arrived in Ireland as Cromwellian settlers during the 17^th century and were soon closely associated with county Galway. To this day the main square in Galway city and the village of Eyrecourt in the east of the county, bear the marks of that association. The Moores were a long-standing aristocratic family dating back to the Norman invasion. Having obtained Cloghan castle at Lusmagh early in the 17^th century, they threw their support behind the Royalist and Jacobite causes. Despite this, they retained some of their holdings, until the reality of mounting debts forced a sale at the Encumbered Estate Court in 1852.  The Armstrongs had first gained fame as Border Reivers operating in the Debatable Lands along the border between England and Scotland during the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Many Armstrongs travelled to Fermanagh in the hope of benefiting from the Plantation of Ulster. A few generations later a branch of the family had begun to establish a dynasty in the former stronghold of the MacCoughlan Clan in the west of King’s County, amassing estates containing thousands of acres with country houses at Banagher, Ballycumber and Gallen Priory outside Ferbane.

Duelling continued to grow in popularity throughout the 18^th century, but how it was carried out would change greatly during that time as pistols replaced rapiers as the preferred weapon of choice for duelists.

The rise of duelling

 To a certain extent firearms served to level the playing field. Previously, taller men with a greater reach, the more athletically able and those with training in swordsmanship went into battle with considerable advantages. The greater availability of pistols gave the unfit, untrained short man at least a fighting chance. But this equality of opportunity, probably also contributed to a rise in the number of duels being fought. The phenomenon is said to have peaked in the 1770s.  In November 1774 it was reported …  

‘On Wednesday last a duel was fought at Frankford between Mr. George Drought and Mr. Alex. Comins, Ganger, when the latter received a ball in the right arm, which broke the bone.’ (4)

In 1777, representatives from Tipperary, Galway, Sligo, Mayo and Roscommon drew up a new code duello at the Clonmel summer assizes. These 25 ‘commandments’ would go on to provide a framework under which future duels were fought in Ireland, Britain and the United States. Duelists were expected to keep a copy of these rules in their pistol case. 

‘a meeting took place last week, near Birr, in the Kings County, between a Mr. Dillon and a Mr. Moor, both living in the neighbourhood of that town, in consequence of some dispute at a hunting match. On the first discharge, Mr. Dillon received his antagonist’s ball through the groin’ (5)

Echoes of Rebellion

Henry Peisley L’Estrange was born at Moystown House around 1776. His family traced their roots to Norfolk and during the 17^th century had amassed thousands of acres between Clonony and Shannonbridge in the west of King’s County. The family was also closely connected with military life and following the resignation of Laurence Parsons as commander of the King’s County Militia in the March 1798, L’Estrange  replaced him. During the Wexford Rising, he played a prominent role in the Battle of Bunclody/Newtownbarry, when forces under his command initially retreated in the face of a rebel advance before regrouping, counterattacking and inflicting serious losses on Rebels led by Fr. Mogue Kearns. 

John Warneford Armstrong was born at Ballycumber in 1770, 45 years after his unfortunate relative Charles Armstrong met his death while attending a duel between John Eyre and Michael Moore.  A commissioned officer in the King’s County Militia, and in May 1798 Warneford Armstrong was approached by two radical lawyers John and Henry Sheares, who attempted to induce him to defect to the United Irishmen cause and bring his militia detachment him. Instead, he reported the matter to his superior Colonel L’Estrange who advised him to play along with the conspirators while reporting the details of his meetings. Eventually the Sheares were arrested, and Armstrong later appeared as prosecution witness at their trial in July. Convicted of high treason, the brothers were hanged, drawn and quartered outside Newgate Prison, with their remains buried in the crypt of St Michan’s church. During the Rebellion Armstrong took command of troops in Kildare and North Wicklow, where he was known for the ferocity of the methods, he used to suppress United Irish activity. (6)

In the summer of 1799, the Kings County Militia prepared for deployment to the Channel Islands. It’s not known what caused the outbreak of bad feeling between two of the regiments officers but in June it was reported that

‘Thursday last a duel was fought on the banks of the canal, near Dublin, between Colonel L’estrange and Captain Armstrong, both of the King’s County Militia; the exchanged a case of pistols, but neither received the least injury’ (7)

Both men lived to fight another day. L’Estrange died at Bath, England in 1824.

 Armstrong was regularly villainized in nationalist literature and song…

‘We saw a nations tears,

Shed for John and Henry Sheares,

Betrayed by Judas, Captain Armstrong’

It was a characterisation that Armstrong robustly rejected, arguing that he had acted at all times in accordance with his duty as an officer. Returning to Ballycumber, he was the recipient of a large government pension. Described as an indulgent landlord, but a stern magistrate, on his death in 1854, he was buried at the Armstrong family vault at Liss church.