Tallen Cyenns, Tales Of The Clan Galbraith

As it was told before, in the year of 1325 Tallen traveled to what was believed to the place of his birth which was said to have been in the southeastern area of the County of Cork in Ireland. This Munster county is the largest in Ireland. The major towns located here are the city of Cork, Mallow, Mitchelstown, Youghal, Kanturk, Cobh, Fermoy, Kinsale, Clonakilty, Skibbereen, Bantry, and Bandon. Before the establishment of the county system, the area of the present County Cork was divided between the territories of Desmond, Muskerry, and Corca Laoidhe. The city of Cork itself was founded in the sixth century by the establishment of a monastery and school on the site by St. Finbarr. This grew into a considerable town. In the early ninth century the Norse Vikings raided and later settled in the town, establishing it as a trading post, and merged with the local inhabitants.

Following the Norman invasion, in 1177 the King of England granted jointly the kingdom of Cork with the exception of the city of Cork to Robert FitzStephen and Miles de Cogan, both Norman knights. Some may recall that Robert, was an ancestor of Tallen's longtime friend John FitzStephen. This invasion brought over further Anglo-Norman settlers, but the colony never extended much beyond the area around the present Cork city. Like the Norsemen, the Normans in the county gradually merged with the native Irish and adopted the Irish way of life. Gradually over the succeeding centuries the power and holdings of the individual Norman families increased by war and intermarriage. The power of many of these Norman and Gaelic families was broken after they supported the unsuccessful revolt of the Earl of Desmond in the late sixteenth century. This resulted in the confiscation of the bulk of the holdings of these families and their distribution, in 1583, to English adventurers. During what is known as the Plantation of Munster, around 15,000 people were brought over and settled in Cork and neighboring counties. Most of these settlers left again when Hugh O'Neill, the leader of the Irish in Ulster and who was from the County of Tyrone began a rebellion with the English and particularly on the approach of his army into Munster in 1598. Although some returned again after his defeat, the plantation was largely a failure. Further English settlers came to the county in the 1650s following the defeat of the 1641 rebellion.

The effects of the Great Famine which began in 1315 and ended in 1317 may have been just one of the reasons Tallen returned to Cork. The Great Famine had coincided with and greatly influenced the Edward de Bruce campaign in Ireland. Edward, a younger brother of Robert the Bruce of Scotland, attempted to make himself High King of Ireland. At first it seemed that an Irish-Scottish alliance was unstoppable, as battle after battle were won and most of Ireland was gained in less than a year. This alliance was on the verge of driving the Anglo-Norman settlers out of Ireland altogether. But the famine hit Ireland hard in 1317 and struck most of the country, making it difficult for Edward de Bruce to provide food to most of his men. He never regained momentum and was defeated and killed in the Battle of Faughart in 1318. Edward's body was cut into quarters, sent to different towns in Ireland. His head being delivered to the King of England, Edward II. That ended the last organized effort in many centuries to end English rule in Ireland. By 1325 the food supply returned to relatively normal conditions and that the population began to increase again and it was when Talllen was said to have been traveling that he was married and soon started a family. His wife was of the Clan Galbraith. She was said to have been from the County of Tyrone in Ireland. An inland Ulster county, Tyrone contains the towns of Strabane, Omagh, CIogher, Dungannon, and Ballygawley. Before the establishment of the present county, this area was part of the territory of Tirowen from which the county was named.

The Norman invasion had little effect on the County of Tyrone because of the power of the O'Neills and the other chieftains. The O'Neills' base was at Dungannon, but all trace of their castle has now disappeared. In 1594, as a result of various attempts by the English to obtain control of Ulster land, Hugh O'Neill, the leader of the Irish in Ulster began a rebellion. With Red Hugh O'Donnell of Donegal and the other major families of Ulster, he defeated successive armies sent to subdue the rebellion. In 1601 the Spanish sent an army to assist the Irish in this war. However, the Spanish army landed in Kinsale in County of Cork, forcing O'Neill to march the length of the country to link up with them. This proved a serious tactical mistake. O'Neill's army was forced to abandon this attempt and was subsequently defeated in 1603. Shortly afterwards, O'Neill and many of his ally chieftains and their families left the country. This so-called "Flight of the Earls" marked the final breakdown of the old Gaelic order in Ulster. Most of the O'Neill territories and those of his allies were confiscated and divided into six of the present Ulster counties. Tyrone was divided up between various English and Scottish adventurers who undertook to bring over settlers to their estates. The native Irish were also allotted some portions of these lands and others remained as laborers on the estates of the new settlers. The "armed men" of Ulster were forced to resettle in the province of Connaught.

The surname Galbraith means Foreign Briton. The surname denoted the ethnic differences between the Gaels who migrated to Scotland in about the fifth century and the native Welsh speaking Britons of the Kingdom of Strathclyde. The Strathclyde Britons remained a distinct ethnic group from the Highland Gaels and Lowland Angles until the fourteenth century. The former capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde was Dumbarton, ”Fortress of the Britons”, in the Lennox. In Scottish Gaelic the Galbraiths are called Breatanuich or Clann-a-Breatannuich, meaning “Britons” and “Children of the Britons”. The early Galbraiths held lands in the Lennox, in the area of Loch Lomond, north of Dumbarton. The stronghold of these early Galbraiths was on the island of Inchgalbraith in Loch Lomond. The celebrated heraldist Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk speculated that the Arms of the Galbraiths, which bore three bears’ heads, may allude to the British name Arthur, which means bear.

The kingdom of the Strathclyde Britons ended in around 1070 when it was conquered by the Scottish king Malcolm son of Duncan, Mael Coluim son of Donnchad. Its royal dynasty was deposed, never to be reinstated, and the native aristocracy had to submit to Malcolm or flee into exile. Those who remained had little choice except to embrace the Gaelic language and culture of their conquerors to eventually become ‘Scots’ themselves. Around a hundred years after the fall of Strathclyde a man called Gilchrist Bretnach appears in landholding records relating to Lennox, the district between Dumbarton, Dun Breatann, ‘Fortress of the Britons’ and Loch Lomond. Gilchrist’s name means, in Gaelic, ‘Christ’s servant, the Briton’. He apparently married a sister of the Scottish earl of Lennox and had two sons, Gillespic Galbrait and Rodarcus Galbrait. In adulthood, around 1190-1200, both sons witnessed charters confirming grants of land made by the earls of Lennox. Gillespic Galbrait is often seen as the first chief of the Galbraiths, a Scottish clan which rose to prominence in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The fourth chief, Sir William Galbraith of Buthernock, married a sister of “Black Comyn” who was head of the most powerful family in Scotland at the time. Sir William, however, sided against the Comyns when he had a part in the rescue the boy king Alexander III from Comyn’s control. Ultimately Sir William rose in power to becoming one of the co-Regents of Scotland in 1255. Sir William’s son, the fifth chief of the clan, Sir Arthur, supported Robert the Bruce and profited in Bruce’s success.

A branch of the Galbraiths held Culcreuch in Strathendrick in 1320, and before the end of that century had inherited the leadership of the clan. In 1489 the twelfth chief, Thomas Galbraith of Culcreuch, was captured by James IV and hanged. The 17th Chief of Clan Galbraith, Robert Galbraith, Laird of Culcreuch brought ruin to the clan. Sometime before 1593 Robert’s widowed mother had married, against his wishes, the chief of the Clan MacAulay, Aulay MacAulay, Laird of Ardencaple. Galbraith’s animosity towards MacAulay was so much that Galbraith was said to have “gevin vp kindnes, and denunceit his euill-will to him with solempne vowis of revenge“. In spring of 1593, Robert Galbraith, purchased a commission of Justiciary, a commission of fire and sword, to pursue the Clan Gregor and “their ressetters and assisters“. Both the MacAulays and Colquhouns were suspicious of Galbraith’s real intentions, and on May 3, 1593 the lairds of the two clans complained that Galbraith had only purchased the commission under counsel from George Buchanan and that Galbraith had no intentions of actually harassing the MacGregors. It seemed more likely that the Galbraiths, allied with the Buchanans would direct their vengeance against the MacAulays and Colquhouns, under the guise of hunting and clearing the Clan Gregor from the Lennox.

Ultimately Robert Galbraith’s letter of commission was taken from him. In 1612 Robert and his wife, likely from pressure from higher up, gave up possession of West Milligs, to his mother who had married MacAulay. Thus, West Milligs, which adjoined Ardencaple modern day Helensburgh, had been held by the Galbraiths of Culcreuch since at least the mid fifteenth century, was lost to the MacAulays of Ardencaple. In 1622, Robert Galbraith, Laird of Culcreuch, was in debt to his brother-in-law, whom he attempted to assassinate, was denounced as a rebel, and forced to give up Culcreuch Castle. Galbraith then fled Scotland for Ireland where he died ten years later, leaving nothing for his son to inherit, and his grandson the 19th Chief of Clan Galbraith was the last of his line. There were other Galbraith family members in Scotland who did not live in castles with nobility, but were members of the middle class, or working men of their day.