In 1180, de Courcy married Affreca, the daughter of Godred, the Norse King of the Isle of Man. However, since de Courcy seems to have concentrated his military power in the castles at Dundrum and Carrickfergus and to have left Dun da Lethglas as a religious centre, it seems that his small castle gradually decayed and was knocked down. A castle located here would have commanded both the gateway into the English town, and would have overlooked a landing place for boats at the foot of the hill, now covered by Market Street. Tradition suggests that the castle site was at the foot of English Street, where there used to stand a building called Castle Dorras, the gate castle, on a site now occupied by The Down Recorder. There is some evidence that de Courcy built himself a castle in Downpatrick. Of those who did so and transferred their loyalty to de Lacy, many were deprived of their land by King John when in 1210 he took over de Lacy's earldom. With the exception of the Savages, who had land on the Ards peninsula and retained their influence for many centuries, few of the recipients of de Courcy's land allocations survived his defeat by Hugh de Lacy in 1204.
Many of the names of those soldiers are still to be found in Lecale and elsewhere in Eastern Ulster today some in families, some in placenames eg Savage, Russell, FitzSimon, Jordan, White, McMahon, Hackitt, Copeland, Audley. Very often the new owners would build on a rath already built by an Irish farmer. The first priority was to build castles, which were, to begin with, small wooden buildings on top of a heaped up mound of earth. It is clear that the native Irish did not stand much chance of defeating then Normans, who with their bows and arrows, swords, armour and horses, were vastly superior militarilyĭe Courcy divided the newly Lecale among his Knights. On his way back, at the Rock of Fergus he built the great stone keep of Carrickfergus castle, one of the two keys to his kingdom.
He then attacked Cu Mide Ua Floinn, a powerful king in county Antrim. He was utterly dedicated to the worship of his God and ready always to give to God the glory, when he had achieved any success.'Īfter his two battles at Down, de Courcy moved north to the territory of the Dal nAraide, whose king he killed. Yet in ordinary life he was a moderate and sober minded man, who showed that true reverence which is owed to Christ and his church. In battle he fought like a reckless common soldier, rather than a careful commander, conscious of his value to his own troops. From his youth he had shown himself to be a valiant man of war, always first into action, always grasping the nettle, danger. 'John was a tall, blond man with long bony limbs, a big man, physically very strong, and of exceptional courage.
#Carrickfergus coat of arms mac
After two fierce battles, in February and June 1176, de Courcy defeated the local chieftain, Mac Duinn Sleibe (Rory MacDunleavy), He did all this without King Henry II's permission.
In early January 1176 he assembled a small army of 22 Knights and 300 foot soldiers and marched north, at the rate of thirty miles a day, skirted the back of the Mourne Mountains and took the town of Dun de Lethglas (later Downpatrick) by surprise. He decided to invade the north of Ireland which was controlled by the Irish clans. John was very ambitious and wanted lands for himself. His father, William de Curci II, married Amice, of Brittany, and died about 1155, leaving the family estates in Somerset and elsewhere in England to his son, William de Curci III, John's elder brother. His grandfather, William de Curci I, married Emma of Falaise. His great-grandfather, Richard de Curci came to England with William the Conqueror and is named in the Domesday Book. JOHN DE COURCY, of Stoke Courcy, in Somerset, came to Ireland around the year 1177 as part of the Norman invading forces, brought in by one of two feuding minor Irish Kings, Dermot MacMurrough of Leinster and Tiernan O'Rourke of Breifne. JOHN DE COURCY Ĭlick here for Down Museum Click here for Lecale Historical Society
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