The Pale (red) in 1450
(
An Pháil in
Irish) or the
English Pale (
An Pháil Shasanach), was the part of Ireland that was directly under the control of the English government in the late
Middle Ages. It had reduced by the late 1400s to an area along the east coast stretching from
Dalkey, south of
Dublin, to the garrison town of
Dundalk north of
Drogheda. The inland boundary went to
Leixlip around the
Earldom of Kildare, towards
Trim and north towards
Kells. In this district, many townlands have English or French names.
History
The
Norman conquest of Ireland beginning in 1171 brought most of Ireland under the theoretical control of the
Plantagenet Kings of England. From the
13th century onwards, the
Hiberno-Norman invasion in the rest of Ireland at first faltered then waned. Across most of Ireland, the
Norman knights, and their servants who were mostly from
Wales and
Cornwall, increasingly assimilated to Irish culture after 1300. A series of alliances with their neighbouring autonomous
Gaelic chieftains developed. In the long periods when there was no large royal army in Ireland, the Norman lords in the provinces acted as effectively independent rulers in their own areas, as the Gaelic chieftains continued to do.
The remaining
Lordship that was actually controlled by the English king shrank accordingly, and as parts of its perimeter in counties
Meath and
Kildare were fenced or ditched, it became known as the Pale, deriving from the
Latin word "
palus", a stake, or,
synecdochically, a fence. Parts can still be seen west of
Clane on the grounds of what is now
Clongowes Wood College. The military power of the crown itself was greatly weakened by the
Hundred Years War (1337–1453), and the
Wars of the Roses (1455–85). A parliament was created, which mostly sat in
Drogheda, until the
Tudors took greater interest in Irish affairs from 1485 and moved it back to Dublin. The Pale generally consisted of fertile lowlands, which were easier for the garrison to defend from ambush than hilly or wooded ground. For reasons of trade and administration, a version of English became the official and common language. Its closest modern derivative is said to be the accent used by natives of
Fingal.
In
1366, in order for the English Crown to assert its authority over the settlers, a
parliament was assembled in
Kilkenny and the
Statute of Kilkenny was enacted. The statute decreed that inter-marriage between English settlers and Irish natives was forbidden. It also forbade the settlers using the
Irish language and adopting Irish modes of dress or other customs; such practices were already common. In particular the adoption of Gaelic
Brehon property laws undermined the
feudal nature of the Lordship. The Act could never be implemented successfully, even in the Pale itself, as the first expansion of Dublin was to an area known as "
Irishtown". By the Tudor period, the Irish culture and language had regained most of the territory initially lost to the colonists: even in the Pale, ‘all the common folk … for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit and of Irish language’.
By the late
15th century the Pale became the only part of Ireland that remained subject to the English king, with most of the island paying only token recognition of the overlordship of the English crown. The tax base shrank to a fraction of what it had been in 1300. The
earls of Kildare ruled as Lords Deputy from 1470 (with more or less success) by a series of alliances with the
Gaelic clans. This lasted until the 1520s, when the earls passed out of royal favour, but the
9th earl was reinstated in the 1530s. The brief revolt by his son
"Silken Thomas" in 1534–35 led on to the
Tudor reconquest of Ireland in the following decades, in which Dublin and the surviving Pale was used as the main military base for expansion.
Origin of the name
The word
pale derives ultimately from the Latin word
palus, meaning stake. From this came the figurative meaning of
boundary and eventually the phrase
beyond the pale, as something outside the boundary. Also derived from the "boundary" concept was the idea of a
pale as an area within which local laws were valid. As well as the Pale in Ireland, the term was applied to various other English colonial settlements. In addition, the term
Pale of Settlement was applied to the area in the west of
Imperial Russia where Jews were permitted to reside.
Fortification
The Pale boundary essentially consisted of a
fortified ditch and rampart built around parts of the medieval counties of
Louth,
Meath,
Dublin and
Kildare, actually leaving half of Meath, most of Kildare, and south west Dublin on the other side. The northern frontier of the pale was marked by the De Verdon fortress of
Castle Roche, whilst the southern border roughly corresponds to the present day
M50 motorway in Dublin.
The following description is from
The parish of Taney: a history of Dundrum, near Dublin, and its neighbourhood (1895):
In the period immediately after the Norman Settlement was constructed the barrier, known as the "Pale," separating the lands occupied by the settlers from those remaining in the hands of the Irish. This barrier consisted of a ditch, raised some ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a hedge of thorn on the outer side. It was constructed, not so much to keep out the Irish, as to form an obstacle in their way in their raids on the cattle of the settlers, and thus give time for a rescue. The Pale began at Dalkey, and followed a southwesterly direction towards Kilternan ; then turning northwards passed Kilgobbin, where a castle still stands, and crossed the Parish of Taney to the south of that part of the lands of Balally now called Moreen, and thence in a westerly direction to Tallaght, and on to Naas in the County of Kildare. In the wall bounding Moreen is still to be seen a small watch-tower and the remains of a guard-house adjoining it. From this point a beacon-fire would raise the alarm as far as Tallaght, where an important castle stood. A portion of the Pale is still to be seen in Kildare between Clane and Clongowes Wood College at Sallins.
Within the confines of the Pale the leading gentry and merchants lived lives not too different from that of their counterparts in England, except that they lived under the constant fear of attack from the Gaelic Irish.
End of The Pale
Eventually, after the
16th and
17th centuries, and especially after the
Anglican Reformation and the
Plantation of Ulster, many of the "Old English" settlers were gradually assimilated into the Irish population, in large part due to their relative reluctance to give up
Roman Catholicism (those who worshiped in the
Church of Ireland were rewarded with a higher status). They kept their version of the
English language, which had Cornish influences, for the most part. They were in fact joined by other English Roman Catholics fleeing persecution under
Queen Elizabeth I and subsequent monarchs. By the Tudor period, however, the Irish culture and language had regained most of the territory initially lost to the colonists: even in the Pale ‘all the common folk … for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit and of Irish language’.
See also
