Tallen Cyenns, Tales Of The Statutes of Kilkenny

Around the seventy-seventh year of Tallen's life, King Edward III enacted the "Statutes of Kilkeeny". It was aimed at preventing settlers becoming too Irish. The ‘English born in Ireland’ were forbidden to adopt Irish clothing and customs. The Statutes also forbade intermarriage and the use of March/Brehon law. They proved ineffective, leading to the Anglo-Irish becoming known as the ‘degenerate English’. Even the Norman-Irish barons acting as deputies for the English king became independent. Royal government grew feeble and beleaguered.

Edward III and then Richard II attempted to restore the colony’s prosperity. Initially Edward announced that the Irish administrators would be replaced by Englishmen, but this caused such outrage that he decided to reinforce royal control and invest men and money. The colonists were genuinely fearful for their survival. They feared a reoccupation by the Irish, and there was a perception that un-colonized areas were in the hands of the ‘wild Irish’. Native rulers were gradually gaining liberty from the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. There was fighting between Irish chieftains because the magnates had previously followed a policy of ‘divide and rule’. Meanwhile, a cultural revival was taking place. Bardic verse was intended to increase the prestige of patrons, and it came back into fashion despite Irish minstrels being banned in 1366 until the seventeenth century. The scribes and traditional historians also enjoyed enthusiastic patronage, and great manuscripts were written which recalled pre-Norman lineages, borders and culture.

The colonists were unwilling to make large contributions towards reconquest, and absentee landlords preferred to sell their estates to residents of Ireland rather than return. The Irish meanwhile hoped to accumulate sufficient power to challenge the earls by recreating provincial kingships. Various chiefs were styling themselves as the kings of provinces. The Great O’Neill father and son declared themselves Prince and Governor of Ulster despite the earl of Ulster Roger Mortimer. Richard II offered to arbitrate, but made Mortimer governor of Ireland, and war followed.

Being that Tallen was thought to have originally been from the County of Cork Ireland, which is the most southerly and the largest of the modern counties of Ireland and has colloquially been referred to as "The Rebel County". This comes as a result of the support of the townsmen of Cork in 1491 for Perki Warbeck, a pretender to the throne of England during the Wars of the Roses. In more recent times, the name has referred to the prominent role Cork played in the Irish War of Independence(1919-1921) and its position as an anti-treaty stronghold during the Irish Civil War(1922-23). Some felt that even in his advanced age that he might join in the rebellion. However it could never be confirmed nor denied if Tallen had ever actually became involved in this uprising.

Much of what is now county Cork was once part of the Kingdom of Deas Mumhan (South Munster), anglicized as "Desmond", ruled by the MacCarthy Mór dynasty. After the Norman Invasion in the 12th century, the McCarthy clan were pushed westward into what is now West Cork and County Kerry. Dunlough Castle, standing just north of Mizen Head, is one of the oldest castles in Ireland (A.D. 1207). The north and east of Cork were taken by the Hiberno-Norman FitzGerald dynasty, who became the Earls of Desmond. Cork City was given an English Royal Charter in 1318 and for many centuries was an outpost for Old English culture. The FitzGerald Desmond dynasty was destroyed in the Desmond Rebellions of 1569–1573 and 1579–83.

Much of county Cork was devastated in the fighting, particularly in the Second Desmond Rebellion. In the aftermath, much of Cork was colonized by English settlers in the Plantation of Munster. In 1491 Cork played a part in the English Wars of the Roses when Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne, landed in the city and tried to recruit support for a plot to overthrow Henry VII of England. The Cork people fought with Perkin because he was French and not English, they were the only county in Ireland to join the fight. The mayor of Cork and several important citizens went with Warbeck to England but when the rebellion collapsed they were all captured and executed. Cork's nickname of the 'rebel city' originates in these events. In 1601 the decisive Battle of Kinsale took place in County Cork, which was to lead to English domination of Ireland for centuries. Kinsale had been the scene of a landing of Spanish troops to help Irish rebels in the Nine Years' War (1594–1603). When this force was defeated, the rebel hopes for victory in the war were all but ended. County Cork was officially created by a division of the older County Desmond in 1606.