(men shouting in unison)
In 1315, an army from Britain invaded Ireland,
numbering 6,000 battle-hardened veterans.
It was one of the most powerful foreign forces
ever to set foot in the country.
(men chanting) But this was no English army.
Its tough mail-clad soldiers were Scotsmen.
Gallowglasses and fighting men from the highlands
and western isles.
Their commander was Edward Bruce,
brother of Robert Bruce, the king of the Scots.
Shiltron arms!
(men shouting)
They had a simple objective,
to drive out the English and make
Edward Bruce king of Ireland.
It was an ambitious plan.
In over 100 years, no one had succeeded
in breaking the English stranglehold on Ireland.
(swords clashing)
This is a story of two Celtic nations,
a shared heritage and a forgotten war
that could have changed the course of history.
Open the gates!
Open the gate. Open the gate!
(somber drum beat)
I work for the king.
I have urgent word for King Robert.
What word?
Sire, the English king has died.
I beheld these brothers
of boundless ambition, with whom no obligations
were binding, no oaths sacred,
and no promises regarded that interfered
with their goal of freedom for their country.
The story of Ireland and Scotland
700 years ago is a story of struggle against tyranny.
At this time, the Celtic nations were pitted
against a ruthless enemy that seemed determined
to subdue every inch of Britain and Ireland.
(swords clashing) (soldiers shouting)
When the Normans conquered England in 1066,
their arrival signaled one of the greatest transformations
in European history, and their search for power
and land would change the politics
and culture of these islands forever.
The Normans come from northern France,
where they have been used to building castles
and training as heavy calvary.
They bring that military technology with them
when they conquer England in 1066
and they carry on bringing it with them
when they move into Scotland
and as conquerors into Wales and Ireland.
But there was a kind of demonic psychic drive
they seemed to have the urge to dominate.
They seem to want to have not only what they possess
but what everyone else possesses.
They were of the view that they'd come
to conquer and Wales was as vulnerable as England was
and Scotland likewise.
And Ireland, of course, was always there in the background.
It was on their to do list.
Just over 100 years after
the Battle of Hastings in 1066,
an Anglo-Norman invasion force landed in Ireland.
They conquered the island, established a new power base,
and became known as the Anglo-Irish.
Most native Irish kings had no option
but to submit to these powerful newcomers.
But many resented the new presence in their country,
and never truly accepted the English king as their monarch.
The late 12th century, what began to happen
in the hundreds of years after was
essentially two different societies coexisted.
So you had Gaelic society and Norman
or what became Anglo-Irish.
What fascinates me about Gaelic Ireland,
about medieval Ireland is the fact that
you have two distinct societies in many ways.
So I could travel from Dublin up
to say O'Neill in Ulster
and it would be like leaving one world for another.
Essentially two alien societies.
So that's the fascination which you don't get
in a lot of other countries in the Middle Ages.
The thing about Ireland in the Middle Ages,
which is not true of Scotland, is that Ireland
was a very polarized society.
You had the native Irish, and you have the English
of Ireland, and they were two nations.
They believed each other to be polar extremes.
As far as the English were concerned,
they had good reason to despise the Irish.
After they first conquered the country,
they brought with them a chronicler,
Gerald of Wales, who described what he saw
as the savage and uncivilized conduct of the native people.
The Irish are a rude people,
subsisting on the produce of their cattle only,
and living themselves like beasts.
A people that is not yet departed
from the primitive habits of pastoral life.
Really Gerald's writings begin
a very long tradition of anti-Irish sentiment.
He's pushing the Irish to one side,
and I suppose what can be called othering them.
He's making them something that you can defeat,
because of what they are.
You're absolutely justified.
Neither willing to give up their old habits
or learn anything new,
abandoning themselves to idleness
and immersed in sloth, their greatest delight
is to be exempt from toil.
Their richest possession the enjoyment of liberty.
This people then is truly barborous.
Indeed all their habits are barbarisms.
In whatever requires industry, they are worthless.
It's always more comfortable
if you're a colonizing and imperial power
to be told that you're also superior.
But there's also at the same time
growing evidence that the English politically
are worried about integration.
Famously, the Statutes of Kilkenny and other laws
in which the English are saying
we want the Irish to be separate
and we want the English to be separate.
English people should not adopt Irish names.
They should not have Irish hairstyles.
These things are actually legislated against.
And the law is a kind of apartheid law,
because by the end of the 13th century,
whereas to kill an English person in Ireland
is a felony, to kill an Irishman is not.
The native Irish felt a much closer affinity
with their Celtic cousins in Scotland.
The two countries had a shared history
that dated back many centuries.
In this shared history, it was the Irish
who were the aggressors and colonizers.
From around the third century A.D.,
they conquered large parts
of their neighbor to the northeast.
The Scots were originally Irish.
They came and settled in what is now Scotland
very early in the Middle Ages.
The kingdom of the Scots was originally an Irish kingdom.
Dal Riata, Gaelic speaking.
Up until say about the year 1,000,
when you said the word Scot, you meant someone from Ireland.
The first Irish people that we know of
who settled in Scotland, they were conquerors.
You know, we tend to think of ourselves
in Ireland as being the receiving end
all the time of conquests, but these people
from Dal Riata who settled on the western seaboard
of Scotland came to conquer land.
When that became like a little province of Ireland,
separated from Ireland by the North Channel,
the Irish church spread there as well.
The invaders carried a sword in one hand
and a Bible in the other.
Saint Columba and other Irish monks
helped to bring Christianity to Scotland.
People who came over to Scotland
like famous examples like Colm Cille Columba,
were members of Irish dynasties.
The kings of Scots were descended from Irish royalty.
So in fact, you're talking about a world,
kind of Gaelic world, that's absolutely continuous
from say Cork up into Argyll.
The links between the two countries
was strongest in Ulster in western Scotland.
Far from being a barrier, the sea helped
to bind them together.
The North Channel could be crossed
in just a couple of hours in a birlinn,
a small Scottish galley similar to the Viking longboat.
These ships were often used to ferry soldiers
between Ulster and Scotland.
But there were stronger links,
links forged in blood and friendship.
The prevailing sentencing in Scotland
is a Gaelic ethos and its heritage
draws from Ireland, it draws back towards Ireland.
Within the Scottish tradition, they looked to Ireland
as a sort of a fertile ground for them,
where they came from.
They looked to Irish culture
as their primary influencing culture.
Maybe it goes back to notions
of Greater Scotia and Lesser Scotia,
which they had in the early Middle Ages
of the big Scotia and the smaller Scotia,
and the big Scotia was Ireland at that point,
because that's the scene from an Irish point of view.
Looking across towards the fringes of Scotland.
Of course the other thing which brings
the two nations together, very strong genealogy.
So many of the Highland clans for example
well, in a nutshell, traced themselves back
to Niall of the nine hostages, and these characters.
Brian Boru of the kind.
That's another thing which is kind of an awarenes,
a binding together if you like,
of the peoples of both sides of the channel.
At their nearest point,
Scotland and Ireland are just 12 miles apart.
An exercise I sometimes do with my students
is turn the usual map of the British Isles on its side,
point to Turnberry and say, "There's the heart
"of the Bruce lordship. Now look at it."
You see Ireland and the Western Isles,
the Scottish coast, the northwestern English coast,
in a very different light,
a different way of understanding it.
If you went from a royal court in Ireland
to a royal court in Scotland in the early Middle Ages,
you wouldn't have noticed a difference.
The language would have been the same.
The culture would have been the same.
The stories that would have been told
would have been the same.
In fact in some cases, the families
would have been the same.
When faced with the Anglo-Normans
the Scots had one major advantage over the Irish.
The Irish did not have an undisputed high king.
Scotland, on the other hand, was ruled
by a single decisive monarch.
Rather than sit back and wait to be conquered,
David the First of Scotland invited the Anglo-Normans in.
He allowed some Norman lords to settle in the country,
relying on them to safeguard his authority.
The greatest of these lords took his name
from the small town near Cherbourg
where his family originated, Brix or Bruce.
The most famous of all Scottish kings
sprang from this lineage.
His name was Robert Bruce,
and he was not just of Norman stock.
His father's marriage to the Countess of Carrick
had injected Celtic blood into the Bruce line.
His mother, after all,
was Countess of Carrick in her own right.
The story was that when she met Robert's father,
the Lord of Annandale, she fell for him in a big way.
Supposedly abducted, and this is a nicer version
of the usual story, she abducted him.
Dragged him off to Turnberry castle,
and they were inside for three days,
and when they emerged, they announced
they were getting married.
Robert Bruce was a product of whatever went on there.
Carrick was part of Galloway.
It was a northern part of Galloway,
and it was definitely Gaelic speaking
quite a long time after the reign of Robert Bruce.
So he was raised very much in a kind of
Celtic or Gaelic speaking area,
if you like, of Scotland.
This you could say is what really makes
Robert Bruce and Edward and all the other brothers,
real hybrids, if you like,
real sons of many kingdoms.
Coming increasingly to think of it,
kind of is a search for place for Bruce.
I think he's brought up by his grandfather and his father
as are probably his brothers as well,
to expect some level of royal status,
some enhanced level of political standing.
Robert could aspire to be
king of Scotland because he was related
to a previous claimer to the throne.
In 1302, he strengthened his position
by marrying Elizabeth, the daughter of Richard de Burgh,
the Earl of Ulster, and one of the most powerful
Anglo-Irish leaders.
Because Richard Burgh had a very eligible daughter
in Elizabeth who grew up here at Greencastle,
there's a certain amount of matchmaking
we think that Edward the First
and basically one of his best friends, Richard de Burgh,
said well we'll cobble together a marriage arrangement
between Robert Bruce and Elizabeth de Burgh.
It's possible the marriage is dangled
as a sort of carrot by Edward the First himself.
It's a way, from his point of view,
of getting a leading lord of southwestern Scotland
part of the Irish sea world, as an ally
of the de Burgh Earl of Ulster
and stabilizing the Irish situation.
While Robert harbored a desire
for the crown, Edward the First
had his own plans for Scotland.
Edward the First was a extremely successful,
ambitious and ruthless monarch,
and when he came to the moment in circa 1290
when he thinks that he can establish, once and for all,
that he is overlord of Scotland,
he doesn't stop for a moment in asserting that claim.
He's turning it into another Ireland,
another Wales, a land, not a realm.
I think that, quite quickly, turns him into
a very strong figure of hate.
There's now a difference between a Scot and an Englishman.
And Edward kind of marks it.
The characteristics which the Scots later
would like to label the English with
of being arrogant, presumptuous, overconfident,
are first and foremost attributed to Edward himself.
Some refused to bend the knee.
Among them was a young patriot named William Wallace,
who waged a desperate guerrilla war
against the English takeover.
Robert Bruce hedged his bets.
He supported Wallace then he supported Edward.
But foremost in his mind was his own claim
to the Scottish throne.
Robert does have this reputation
being slightly schizophrenic,allying himself
to Edward and the English one day
and then the Scots the next.
I think that duplicity, to understand that,
we've really got to see Robert Bruce in context.
He tries the political solution,
the diplomatic solution.
Move to the Scots under Wallace for a bit.
Then leave them, go back to the lordship
of Edward the First, cause that's a better bet after all.
Edward the First the head honcho
in western Europe practically.
So that's where the powder base is,
that's where you should hang in
if you want to advance the interests of your people.
He's a pragmatist.
He will take whatever path he needs to take
to get to where he wants to go.
If one day that means he's got to basically
give himself up to the English
and fight on their side, he will do.
If he wanted to be king of Scotland,
Robert had to deal with his main rival, John Comyn,
and in 1307 when the two men met at Greyfriars Abbey
in Dumfries, an event took place
that shaped the future of Scotland forever.
He rode there at once
and met with Sir John Comyn
in the Greyfriars at the high altar.
In a mocking manner, he showed him
the indenture and then with a knife
took his life on that very spot.
Because of it, such great misfortune befell him.
The killing of Comyn is a real puzzle
in terms of where the church stood,
because we have to understand
that when Bruce killed Comyn, he did it
at the altar of the church of the Greyfriars in Dumfries.
When you kill somebody
in hot blood at the altar,
you're automatically excommunicated.
So it's surprising then that Bruce seems
to have garnished so much support from the Scottish church.
You would have expected the opposite to happen,
that they would hold him in total disregard.
He's a heretic, he's damned to hell for eternity.
But they don't see it that way for some reason.
Some remarkable talent rallies around Bruce.
I think that's strange.
That action, whether it is premeditated murder
or an act of rage in an argument,
that's the turning point.
He has a lightening decision to make.
Either he goes on the run.
He basically becomes a fugitive,
or he grasps the thistle and goes for the throne.
As soon as we get to that point
where Comyn is killed, the path is straight ahead
and the path is conflict between Bruce
and the king of England.
(swords clashing) (soldiers shouting)
With the support of the Scottish church,
Robert had himself crowned King of Scots.
But Edward the First moved quickly
to crush the upstart king.
He captured several members of the Bruce family
and had them killed or imprisoned.
Robert's wife, Elizabeth de Burgh, was taken captive.
Robert was now a hunted man.
With his followers reduced to only a small band of men,
he fled to the Western Isles of Scotland.
(thunder rumbles)
(rain falling)
For it was nearly winter,
and there were so many enemies around him
and all the country made war on him.
Such dreadful misfortunes tested them then,
like hunger, cold and cutting rain,
that no one alive can tell it all.
Robert Bruce found himself
at the Mull of Kintyre on the very edge of Scotland.
From here, he could see the coast of Ulster.
Not for the last time, the thought struck him
that the Irish could help in the war with England.
When we're trying to understand him
and his ultimate success, and then we're trying
to understand what on earth they were up to in Ireland,
it's something about his background
in the Gaelic world that provides us
with part of the key to that.
From Kintyre, Bruce made
the short sea journey to Rathlin Island
off the Antrim coast.
He is supposed to have hidden here
with his followers in a dank cave
accessible only by boat.
It seems that he planned to regain
the throne with the help of Irish allies.
In fact, his two younger brothers,
Thomas and Alexander Bruce, had raised
an Irish army and landed in Scotland.
But their mission came to nothing,
and the brothers were captured and executed
by Edward the First.
It would be nearly a decade before Robert
could cement his alliance with the Irish.
Open the gate! Open the gate!
In July, 1307, Edward the First died
and in a single stroke, the greatest obstacle
to Scottish freedom was removed.
Shortly before he dies,
Edward has a couple of English friars executed
for stating that Robert Bruce is the subject
of the prophecies of Merlin.
That means that Robert Bruce is a second King Arthur,
that his destiny is to unite Wales and Ireland
and Scotland against England and drive
the hated English dragon back
into the North Sea whence it came.
King Edward the First
would be long remembered as the most ruthless
and vindictive foe ever faced by Scotland.
His tomb in Westminster Abbey was enscribed
with the words Scotorum Malleus,
"Hammer of the Scots."
But his son, who now succeeded him as Edward the Second,
would prove to be a much less formidable opponent.
Be near your surviving comrades
who yet strive for glory.
Inspire us to emulate your actions
that our efforts may prove glorious.
In 1314, an army led by Robert Bruce
faced the English in battle.
The fight took place south of Stirling,
somewhere near a stream known as the Bannockburn.
For hundreds of years, there have been arguments
as to the exact location of the battle.
In 2013, military historian and archaeologist
Tony Pollard spent a year searching
and eventually locating the site
of the most important battle in Scottish history.
It was the pivotal encounter in the long
and brutal war between Scotland and England,
and it was very much a case of David and Goliath.
The Scots were outnumbered two to one.
Leading up to the battle,
Edward had been in command of the siege
of Stirling Castle.
It's that siege that brings about the battle.
It's that siege that coaxes the English army north.
So you've got these three massive divisions
of well-trained men delivering a massive victory
of the common man really.
These are men on foot.
Many of these men are just commoners,
they're farmers, they're people from the town.
And it must have been incredibly demeaning
for the English who have at the heart
of their army the nobility.
Men on expensive horses, wearing state of the art armor.
They're literally brought to their knees.
The Scots absolutely wiped the floor with them.
It's an absolute disaster for the English,
and a huge triumph for the Scots.
(soldiers shouting)
Bannockburn would go down
in history as Scotland's greatest single victory
over England.
Slowly but surely, Robert Bruce was driving
the invaders back to their home.
(swords clashing) (soldiers shouting)
There has been a tendency
for Scottish historians to ignore
the aftermath of Bannockburn.
It really should be the wonderful climax
to Bruce's career and he has to drip on
for another, what is it, 16 years
before the English actually recognize his title
as King of Scots.
Robert Bruce wanted the English to recognize
the independence of Scotland.
That didn't change, but he also wanted
one thing more than that, of course.
He wanted them to recognize the independence
of Scotland with him as its king,
and that didn't change one iota
after Bannockburn, so he was probably
scratching his head trying to figure
out what he might do next.
This must have been very, very depressing,
and it seems to be one of the reasons
why he has to open up new fronts
in the war with the English after Bannockburn.
Despite the great Scottish victory,
there was another crucial chapter
in the story of the war against the English.
But this part of the tale would be told
not in Scotland, but in Ireland.
The Anglo-Irish colonists in the country
would have been devastated by the news
that this upstart Scot had defeated their king,
and I'm pretty sure that nearly everyone
in Gaelic Ireland would have thought
it was bloody good news.
In April 1315, Robert Bruce
called a parliament at Ayr in southwest Scotland
to decide on the future campaign.
It has always been thought that it was from here
that Robert Bruce sent forth a famous appeal to the Irish.
The king sends greetings
to all the kings of Ireland,
to the prelates and clergy,
and to the inhabitants
of all Ireland as friends.
Where as we and you and our people and your people
free since ancient times, share the same national ancestry,
and our hearts to come together more eagerly
and joyfully in friendship by a common language
and by common custom.
It was only discovered in the 1950s
or there abouts.
It's a tremendously interesting letter from Robert Bruce,
and it's a very kind of important
call to the Irish to join forces with the Scots.
It's an appeal to some kind of ancient bond
between the two.
But what if the letter
dates from a much earlier period?
Had Robert Bruce always yearned
to unite the Celtic nations?
Sean Duffy of Trinity College Dublin
believes that the letter was composed
around 1306 when Robert and his followers
were based on Rathlin Island.
When you get down to the small print
of the letter as it were, he says that the envoys
he's sending are these two men called T and A.
He just gives the initials because
that's the way the letter has survived.
It's pretty certain that that letter that Robert sent,
the envoys mentioned in it,
are his brothers Thomas and Alexander.
So it belongs in the winter of 1306 to seven,
when he was in a lot of trouble,
and he was hanging on by his fingernails
to the throne of Scotland,
and he wanted an Irish alliance to join
sides with him against the English.
We have sent you our beloved kinsmen,
the bearer of this letter, to negotiate with you
in our name about permanently strengthening
and maintaining inviolate the special friendship
between us and you.
So that with God's will, our nation
may be able to recover her ancient liberty.
It is a tendency by some people to think
that Robert Bruce because he's from
a predominantly Anglo-Norman background,
that this must be pure cynicism on his part,
because how could he dare talk
about our nation, the Scots and Irish nation,
and our common language as if he was a Gaelic speaker
and imbued with all things Gaelic.
The letter is genuine.
It seems to me the letter was sent by Robert
right at the start of his reign.
It seems to me it won a lot of backing for him in Ireland.
I think therefore we have to accept that
there was a Gaelic side to Robert Bruce's character.
I think the existence of this document,
and I think Sean's right in this actually,
does imply very much that there's some understanding
before the letter, if you like.
Some sense of what may be a natsio, a nation.
That's very powerful.
This is a statement, if you like,
if there's such a thing, as can a Gaelic
nationality go at such.
The trouble is, the danger here is
whether we can use words
to describe concepts in the past
where they didn't have words for them themselves.
This is our problem.
So if nationalism's a word that doesn't come
in to the English until the 19th century,
can we apply it to people who are living
in the 13th or the 14th centuries?
Personally, I would say yes we can.
If it's not nationalism they're talking about,
it's that by almost any other name.
During one long winter
on Rathlin Island, I dreamed
we would assist the sons and daughters
of our sister nation in their fight
against the common foe
the English.
And in doing so,
reunite the Celtic people.
Scotland under Robert Bruce
and Ireland under Edward.
Were we not colonized by the Irish?
Been bound by blood, family, language?
Were we not Christianized from the same souls?
Preparations have been made.
We will be one with Ireland.
After Bannockburn, he feels
you've gotta carry the torch to the enemy.
This was Brucey's number one weapon
in trying to get some sense out
of the English kings to recognize
the legitimacy of his kingship.
The notion was, just as we're opening
up a front in the north of England,
let's open up one in Ireland.
(stirring string music)
Assembling to himself
men of great courage, then he took ship at Ayr
in the following month of May,
and took his way straight to Ireland.
They have undertaken a great project
when with so few as they were there,
they prepared to conquer all Ireland,
where they would see many thousands
come armed to fight against them.
But although few, they were brave.
Battlefield archaeologist Tony Pollard
was born in England, but his grandparents
are from Ireland, and he lives and works in Scotland.
He's a living example of the close links
between the three countries,
and he's fascinated by the incredible events
that brought them together in bloody conflict
700 years ago.
Today, Larne Harbor is the most important port
between Ireland and Scotland on the Irish side.
In 1315, this would have been the place
where Edward Bruce's Scottish army
came together after landing on the beaches
all the way up and down this coast.
Around 6,000 men carried in 300 boats, it said,
and these boats were birlinns.
They were West Highland galleys,
and they would have plied a daily trade
between here and Scotland,
and up and down the west coast of Scotland.
They wouldn't have been an uncommon sight.
But to have been on the hills behind us
and seen 300 of these heading towards these shores
must have been incredibly daunting.
(threatening string music)
(men shouting)
Scots are used as the kind
of traditional bogey man.
The Scots will come and get you.
And then in May, the Scots are no longer
separated from them by a stretch of land.
They're actually here, which throws the whole
of the Anglo-Norm community
at Kintyre a panic.
They've never really expected to end up fighting the Scots
in their own back yard.
So when 6,000 of them come into Antrim,
this is like their worst nightmare come true.
(menacing string music)
And the thing is now Tony,
do you see what's over there?
How close.
It was quite, yeah.
So that's Scotland.
That's Scotland.
We're on the hill just above the town
of Larne on the coast, and this is said to be
the sight of the first battle of the campaign.
Absolutely, Tony.
This is where Sir Thomas Mandeville
gathers all the Norman lords from Ulster,
the Bissets, the Savages, the Logans,
gathers them here, concentrates,
cause he can see Larne over there.
This is a victorious army.
Bruce has got about five or 6,000 men with him.
They are the men that smashed
Edward the Second's army at Bannockburn.
It's D-Day down there.
This is D-Day, yes.
If Mandeville manages to hold Bruce here,
the campaign's off.
Yeah or even kick him back into the sea.
Kick him back into the sea.
(soldiers shouting)
(swords clashing)
(thunder rumbles)
(rain pouring)
Edward Bruce knew that
he could count on certain allies in ireland.
First and foremost, was Donall O'Neill,
the king of Tyrone, who had pledged
to support the Scots.
Robert had made able preparations,
but we would have no success in Ireland
without the help of the Irish families.
Their attitude towards him was the pivot
on which all his plans were based.
Donall O'Neill was a descendent
of the ancient high kings of Ireland.
He was in no doubt about his own
royal blood and his own place
at the apex, at the pyramid of power
in Gaelic Ireland.
You know, the problem was though for him
that many other Irish people rejected
his claim to be high king.
You know, if you were a descendent of Brian Boru,
you weren't necessarily convinced that it was
O'Neill's ancestors who had a monopoly
on the high kingship.
He was a realist who recognized
that his own interests could be served best
if they could all unite behind another figure.
Sure he was into it for what he could get out of it,
like all politicians and like all powerful men.
Though the Irish huts be poor,
and though our feasts be small,
he sees his little lot as the lot of all.
No prince's palace rears its head,
to shame the meanness of his humble bed.
(laughing)
Man is worthy of this world who rejoices in the world
and makes the most of it.
(laughing)
The English king
and the English lords born in Ireland
have heartlessly inflicted cruel injuries
on us and on our ancestors.
They have forced us to live on mountains
and in forests, on bogs and other barren places
like wild animals.
It's not just their laymen,
but even some of their clergy
say it is no more a sin to kill an Irishman
than it is to kill a dog or other brute creature.
So we are compelled to enter into a deadly war with them.
If ever thou hast occasion for assistance
to repel an invader
or attack a foe,
call on Scotland.
Whom thy hospitality hast taught to be grateful,
and on whose heart thy kindness
has made a deep impression.
Today, Carrickfergus
is a satellite town of Belfast,
but in the 14th century, Belfast was no more
than a tiny village, and Carrickfergus was
the most important town in Ulster,
a strategic outpost of great military significance.
It was vitally important that Edward Bruce capture it
to prevent the English from landing an army there.
Castles like Carrickfergus were the power base
for the Anglo-Normans or the Anglo-Irish.
These were the people that had come in
and taken over Gaelic Ireland,
and these were the people that Bruce was intending
to have a go at in his invasion.
So for Edward Bruce, this castle is a very important target
and he's very keen to take it.
He has to take Carrickfergus.
If he can take Carrickfergus, that means
that Robert's position in his wars
against the English in the north, it opens up everything.
If they can take Carrickfergus, then the entire
Northern Sea zone is theirs, and probably
the entire sea zone right down towards Bristol.
If you can cut off that channel,
then the oxygen to the supply routes
for Edward the Second are almost extinct.
Surely one motive behind the Irish invasion
was that they could somehow damage the English
supply routes and the sources of English supply.
Now if you could cut off that kind of supply,
you could make a big dent in enemy support
or support for the enemy.
I think Ireland was, Ireland's recognized to have been
a very important bread basket for the English.
The Scots took Carrickfergus town
without much difficulty.
The castle was a more difficult proposition.
Edward Bruce did not have the siege equipment
needed to take the castle by storm,
so he surrounded it and prepared
to starve its garrison into submission.
When Edward Bruce arrives in Ireland,
in 1315, he's very keen to identify
himself with Carrickfergus.
Indeed it's while he's here, that around a dozen
Gaelic chiefs or even minor kings,
come to him and proclaim him high king of Ireland.
Then all the kings
of the Irishry came to Sir Edward
and did their homage to him.
He was well set now and in a good way
to conquer the land altogether,
for he had on his side the Irish and the Ulster.
All hail Edward the Bruce,
high king of all Ireland.
(swords being drawn)
With Edward now proclaimed high king
of Ireland, many Gaelic leaders threw
their support behind the Bruce invasion.
Allegiance to a Scottish king in Ireland
was preferable to supporting an absent English king.
There were Irish allies of the Bruces
who had convinced them that this would work.
The Irish wanted the English out.
The Irish had proved themselves incapable
of uniting behind any one figure within Ireland,
and so the best thing therefore was
to get somebody from outside Ireland
behind whom they could align.
It's an interesting part of the history
of Ireland and Scotland.
There are cultural links.
There's no doubt about that,
but really it's a significant and political leap
between them, with Edward coming over
and claiming the high kingship.
You could said it was misguided.
You could say it's political slight of hand.
You could say a lot of things,
but really I think it does indicate
that there's a recognition,
even though he's a politician,
there is a recognition that there's a possibility here
that there's something he could build on.
The strength of the cultural ties was enduring
and had been going on since the early Middle Ages.
The Anglo-Irish had been completely
taken off guard by the invasion,
and were even slower to react.
The English king told his representative
in Dublin, Edmund Butler, to gather
the Anglo-Irish lords and raise an army.
The most powerful of these lords
was Richard de Burgh, the Earl of Ulster.
He was also Robert Bruce's father-in-law.
The Scots marched south through de Burgh's lands
in Ulster into a gap between Slieve Gullion
to the west and the Cooley Mountains to the east.
This area is known as the Moyry Pass,
and to this day, it is an important corridor
between Ireland north and south.
Edward Bruce was now being guided
into Leinster by people who had old scores
to settle with local Anglo-Norman lords.
The most notorious Anglo-Norman family
was the De Verdons, who held extensive estates
in the Meath and Louth areas.
The De Verdons had enforced a violent claim
over the people, essentially ruling the area
by fear and extortion.
This was a De Verdon castle,
and they were to be really quite important players
in the fight against the Scottish invasion.
The feudal system is really like a protection racket.
If you're a tenant or a peasant, you pay taxes
or you do service for your lord.
But in return, your lord will protect you.
That's what this castle is designed to do
is to symbolize that power
and that ability to protect,
but it doesn't really work.
Bruce comes down from Ulster with his army.
He takes one look at this, and very sensibly thinks
we're already tied up with one siege at Carrickfergus.
This place looks pretty impregnable.
We'll give it a swerve.
So they just leave it,
but there's more than one way to skin a cat.
What they do is, they burn the nearby town of Dundalk.
That demonstrates to the local population
that their lords and masters no longer
have the ability to protect them.
It does exactly what taking that castle would do,
but it's much easier.
(women screaming)
Dundalk suffered very severely during
the course of the Bruce invasion.
Not indiscriminately, I believe it was because
it was held by the De Verdons.
You look at all the places they attack,
there's usually a local, political reason for it.
It's not some kind of indiscriminate
carpet bombing of Ireland by them.
Unless the king of England
invades Scotland again, the Scots will try
to conquer Ireland this winter,
and the Irish of Ireland will help them.
I have lost everything fighting Edward Bruce,
my lands, my horses, my armor, my rents, and my revenues.
(men shouting in unison)
There was very little concerted opposition
to Edward Bruce to begin with,
but by the end of his first summer in Ireland,
the government was beginning to get its act together,
and it realized they'd have to get an army
and march after him and try and meet him in the field.
Richard de Burgh was Earl of Ulster.
He created an almost impenetrable,
invincible realm for himself.
He's one of the most powerful Anglo-Norman
magnates on the island.
He controls lands in Connacht,
he controls most of the land around here in Ulster.
He's the one who says to the chief governor,
Edmund Butler, that he wants to tackle Bruce himself.
[Richard de Burgh] I have here a force
of my own of 20 battalions.
It is large enough to expel an equal number
from the country or to kill them in it.
He wants to go back to Ulster
and actually wrestle Ulster back from the Bruces.
Because it's almost like a personal insult to him.
This is his son-in-law effectively saying
I'm going to send my brother over
to take away your personal kingdom.
Richard de Burgh effectivlely says
I'm not having this.
He decides that I'm going to march from Connacht,
I'm going to take my Gaelic allies,
and we're going to defeat Bruce in my back yard effectively.
(armor rattling)
(ominous drum beat)
Looking at this site, do you think this bit's
a bit more prehistoric than the sites across the way or...
I don't know.
I see a big stone wall over there.
I know. That looks extremely interesting.
Oh wow.
Bigger than, how big are these stones?
It's massive. Gavin: Massive.
Careful here. It's collapsing.
I know.
This is known as the old fort,
or actually locally in Connor as the trench.
But it's a moat, isn't it, of some sort.
It is.
Why is it here? What function is it serving?
Well, the thing about Connor is
it's a very important Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical center.
We think it might have been fortified,
so whenever de Burgh is coming up,
chasing after Bruce's army,
now he suddenly finds himself out of supply.
Yeah. -: He comes from Antrim to here
because it has stores of whatever they need.
Now he comes here to defend it and take those stores.
Bruce is out there watching him.
De Burgh comes up here with the Irish ally
Felim of Connacht.
Felim of Connacht however, halfway through
this campaign of chasing up to Coleraine
goes back down to Connacht.
So de Burgh is actually left high and dry.
Sir Phillip Mowbray actually organizes
Scots to go and wave banners and taunts
the Anglo-Normans to come out and chase them.
Come out and chase them.
De Burgh sees the banners, and they go out
in that direction, and they're hit in the flank.
Then Bruce sees the battle, and suddenly joins in.
They refer to this battle as being one
of the bloodiest of the campaigns.
The field is wet with blood.
He says here, that as an archaeologist
this is really interesting, he says,
"The field was wholly covered by weapons,
"arms, and dead men."
(swords clashing)
(men shouting)
The fields soon grew wet with blood.
We fought dear with such great fierceness
and struck such blows on each other
with stick, with stone, and with blow returned
as each side could land on the other
that it was dreadful to see.
(men crying out)
De Burgh is the most powerful lord in Ireland.
He's a battle brother of Edward the First,
he was at Bannockburn.
He is a military mind, he is a good, good warrior.
And yet when he comes up here, he is all powerful.
After the battle of Connor,
his power is almost completely broken.
He leaves here shattered.
After Connor, Ulster is Scottish.
It's no longer de Burgh's land at all.
If he thought that he was going to send
a message to the Bruces, that hang on here, this is my turf,
what actually ends up happening is
he has to leave Ulster.
He flees Ulster.
The annals of Connacht refer to him rather wistfully
as almost being like a wanderer,
up and down the lands, no lordship, no power.
Shiltron, front face!
Shiltron arms!
Shiltron!
(men shouting)
Ireland was only one front
in Robert Bruce's war against the English.
He had raided territories in northern England,
and personally led the army which laid siege
to the English border town of Carlisle.
No one could deny that the Bruce brothers
were causing major problems for the English,
both at home and abroad.
The more there be, the more honor
all out have we.
If we bear it manlily.
We are set here in jeopardy
to win honor or for to die.
We are too far from home to flee.
Therefore let ilk man worthy be.
You are gatherings of this country,
and so flee I trothe likely.
And ilka man assail them manlily.
(steady drum beat)
For the judgment of heaven
is called down on me and my people.
What is to become of us?
I feel they must face the wrath of two kings
to convince them of their loyalty.
Prepare yourself for war.
(men shouting) (swords clashing)
Treachery stalks unashamed in Ireland
among the nobility as well, I see.
(flames crackling)
(solemn music with drumbeat)