Does Robert The Bruce offer a 700 year old solution to Brexit impasse?

Posted on: 30 November 2018

Historical precedents for some of the big questions arising from Brexit were explored in an inaugural lecture by Seán Duffy, newly appointed Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History, in Trinity College Dublin on Wednesday 28th November.

The prospect of the UK leaving the European Union has reignited calls for a second independence referendum in Scotland and a border poll here on Irish unity. There has even been talk of a realignment of national groupings so that the English and Welsh, who voted to leave the EU, could do so, while Scotland and Northern Ireland, where a majority voted to stay, could remain in the EU, forming a new entity which has been dubbed SCINI —Scotland–Ireland–Northern Ireland.

Professor Sean Duffy, Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History

It might seem like an unlikely prospect but, in his lecture, Professor Duffy discussed how, 700 years ago an Irish-Scottish union was actually established – by no less a figure than Scotland’s King Robert the Bruce. After his great victory over the English at Bannockburn in the summer of 1314 – a battle for the independence of Scotland – Bruce was invited by the Irish to send his younger brother to become king of Ireland and to lead a campaign there against English rule. He did so, and for three years from 1315 Edward Bruce, the heir presumptive to the throne of Scotland, attempted to rule as king of Ireland, until killed by the English at the battle of Faughart near Dundalk 700 years ago last month, in October 1318.

In his inaugural lecture, entitled “King Robert Bruce the Irishman”, Professor Duffy explained that a union of Ireland and Scotland was not as outlandish as it might seem and he will illustrate how Robert the Bruce, Scotland’s greatest king, used his Gaelic heritage to forge a Celtic alliance of Irish and Scots.

“My research on the relations between Ireland, Scotland and Wales in the Middle Ages has examined in detail the Bruce family connection with Ireland and their immersion in the Gaelic world of the West Highlands, the Islands, and Galloway. The family had a strong Irish connection stemming from Edward and Robert Bruce’s mother, a Gael from the Firth of Clyde. It was because of his Gaelic heritage that Robert Bruce could write to potential Irish allies from Rathlin Island in 1306-7 reminding them that the Scots and Irish have ‘sprung from one seed of birth’ and have ‘a common language and customs’.”

“And it was because of his Gaelic heritage that the Irish, having helped Bruce secure his position as king of Scots—in the teeth of English opposition that culminated in King Robert’s great victory at Bannockburn—could turn to him and his family for assistance. Together they initiated a Celtic Alliance of Irish and Scots—and the Welsh, whose involvement the Bruce’s also solicited. The purpose of which, O’Neill says (in a letter to MacCarthy of Munster which historians have wrongly neglected), is to ‘shake off the heavy yoke and tyranny of the English’. Anti-English sentiment is not a modern phenomenon. It was alive and well long before Brexit in the days of King Robert Bruce the Irishman and while today a three-state union might seem far-fetched, 700 years ago, a similar entity was established by Scotland’s King Robert the Bruce.”

Professor Duffy is an expert in Medieval Irish history and a cornerstone of his research for the last three decades has been the examination of Ireland’s relations with Scotland, Wales, and the Kingdom of Man and the Isles in the Middle Ages, with particular focus on the period between the battle of Clontarf in 1014 and the battle of Faughart in 1318 (in which Edward, brother of Robert the Bruce was killed).

In his work, he has developed a transnational approach, and has been particularly concerned with the response of the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh to domination by England from 1066 onwards, and especially the extent to which, after the English invasion of Ireland in 1169, Ireland’s experience mirrored that of Scotland and Wales.

Audience attendees at the inaugural lecture by Professor Sean Duffy

More about Professor Seán Duffy

Seán Duffy is Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History at Trinity College Dublin. He is a graduate of Trinity, from which he also holds an M.Litt and a PhD, the latter completed while a Scholar at the School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. He is a Fellow of the College, where he has lectured since 1993. He has been Head of Department, a member of the Board of Trinity, and Secretary to the Fellows. He has written or edited about 35 books and nearly 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book-chapters, has organized 30 conferences, served on 10 editorial or advisory boards, has been external examiner of undergraduate History in four third-level institutions and of doctoral theses in several others, and has supervised upwards of 25 doctoral candidates of his own, several of whom now lecture in UK and Irish universities.

Seán Duffy has published widely on Irish history generally, and medieval Ireland in particular, on Anglo-Irish relations through the ages, on the history of the Celtic countries in the medieval period, and on the history and archaeology of Dublin since the Viking Age. A cornerstone of his research has been the examination of Ireland’s relations with Scotland, Wales, and the Kingdom of Man and the Isles in the Middle Ages, concentrating on the period between the battle of Clontarf in 1014 and the battle of Faughart in 1318 (in which Edward, brother of Robert the Bruce was killed). In his work, he has developed a transnational approach, and has been particularly concerned with the response of the Irish, the Scots and the Welsh to domination by England from 1066 onwards, and especially the extent to which, after the English invasion of Ireland in 1169, Ireland’s experience mirrored that of Scotland and Wales.

At the inaugural lecture were: (l to r) Professor Darryl Jones, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Sean Duffy, Professor of Medieval Irish and Insular History, Dr Patrick Prendergast, Provost of Trinity College Dublin

Since 1998, Seán Duffy has been chairman of the Friends of Medieval Dublin, a not-for-profit advocacy organisation and is much involved in pro bono consultative and advisory work on matters relating to history and heritage, particularly with Dublin City Council. Since 1999 he has organised an annual interdisciplinary conference on medieval Dublin, the proceedings of which are published each year by Four Courts Press. In 2014, he was a founder and organiser of the prestigious biennial James Lydon Lectures in Medieval History and Culture, the volumes of which appear in a dedicated Cambridge University Press series, and he is also co-founder of the Trinity Medieval Ireland Symposium, held biennially (the proceedings of which are published in a new Four Courts Press series), as part of which plans are well-advanced for a major national conference in May 2019 to mark the 850th anniversary of the 1169 Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.