THE ULSTER CONFLICT « clans » governed by a chieftain chosen from a ruling family by the clansmen on the basis of suitability for the task. There was no succession by male primogeniture - a chieftain was as likely to be succeeded by a nephew or cousin as by his eldest son. And the clan system did not recognize private property in land: the tribal area was considered to be the common property of the entire clan, and the whole clan (including the chieftain) only enjoyed temporary private use of whatever had been allocated to them. Some chieftains exercised nominal overlordship as provincial «kings», but they had little influence over local administration, and there was constant struggle for power between the clans. The only real unifying factors were the common language and culture, and the influence of Christianity throughout the whole island (converted by St. Patrick) at a time when that religion was in a state of breakdown in the rest of Europe following the collapse of the Roman system. From the 5th to the 8th century A.D. Ireland was a sanctuary for Christianity and a jumping off point for Christian missionaries and wisemen determined to maintain the Christian cause in Britain and Europe. In the 9th and 10th centuries the Norsemen from Scandinavia invaded Ireland as part of their great outward expansion of that era. But they did not achieve any lasting supremacy. Their greated contribution to Ireland was the establishment of seaport towns and the quickening of commerce carried by sea. They weakened Christian monasteries and schools in the island, and were used as allies in the continuing local warfare between contending chiefs. This use of the Norsemen as allies by one provincial« king» led another, Dermot MacMurragh, « King » of Leinster to get permission, in 1166, from the English king, Henry 2, to recruit help from the Norman lords in South Wales for his struggles. When MacMurragh died one of the Norman barons seized and held Leinster. At this time centralized power was only slightly more secure in England than in Ireland, and this seizure of territory in Ireland opened up a prospect of English Norman barons increasing their independence with regard to the English king. Henry 2 had no choice but to intervene. He did so with the approval of the Pope who considered that the introduction of a strong secular power into Ireland would bring the Irish Church, which had strayed from the tradition of Western Christendom, back into line. In 1171 Henry invaded Ireland with a large army which 53
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