RTÉ1, 2 and 9 June 2024
and RTÉ Player
Tile Films
By Sylvie Kleinman
This welcome but not unflawed two-part documentary attempts to redress the fact that the story of the Norman ‘invasion’ (and conquest) has never been ‘properly told on screen’, but does not always do so properly here. Ireland c. 850 years ago was like ‘a real-life game of thrones … torn apart by a war [our emphasis] between rival kings’, which brought the Normans over. For a robust refresher, see Seán Duffy’s ‘1169 and all that’ (HI 27.3, May/June 2019, pp 20–4). He is among the academics and experts contributing incisively, though the production sticks to the unimaginative template of individual interviews and chopping their statements into soundbites. Some refer to Anglo- and Cambro-Normans, admittedly later labels but possibly more accurate by the 1160s. Perhaps the general public was swept away by the dramatic performative skills of the narrator, the (real) Game of Thrones actor Michael McElhatton, but it was too mellifluous for one seasoned academic, who switched off and deprived this reviewer of valued opinions, as vigilance is required. Other colleagues agreed that some statements in the voice-over script lacked scholarly rigour, were hyped, ahistorical and/or displayed bias. The roots of ‘850 years of oppression’ and ‘British’ domination will be mooted, and ethnicity arguments will regrettably weaken Invasion’s credibility.
In the turmoil of twelfth-century Ireland, provincial kings vied for supremacy. Diarmait Mac Murchada’s trials and tribulations led him to seek the assistance of the Angevin king of England, and ruler of most of France, Henry II. Diarmait’s negative reputation in memory is alluded to by academics, but Invasion mostly sticks to old-school factual ‘great men of history’ and their agency—literally, as no interest in the relative power of élite women is displayed. Aoife only appears very fleetingly as Strongbow’s bride, their match securing his legitimate claims as her father Diarmait’s heir; we hear nothing of her life then or thereafter. The Irish are appropriately very hairy, parleying, marching and skirmishing in dense Irish forests, bedecked with thick wool cloaks, in sharp contrast to the more Roman look of the invaders. There is ‘stunning location footage’ of Ferns, Trim and Pembroke (Wales), but when drones overfly urban Ireland we see more of the 1970s than the 1170s. ‘Atmospheric drama re-enactments’ are indeed ‘gritty’, conveying the unforgiving close hand-to-hand combat when the much better-equipped knights arrive. With their distinctive shields and clinking chain-mail, they inflict brutal blows, supported by archers striking from a distance and demonstrating military superiority, if facing fierce opponents. We heard a ridiculous French command which was neither medieval nor grammatically suitable (‘Allons!’), but later were reminded that the forenames Siobhán, Sinéad and Seán were then introduced.
Seizing Dublin meant breaching its Hiberno-Norse stone walls (built after c. 1100), but this led to some disconnections between voice-over, visuals and commonly accepted versions. At Ship Street Little we see the ‘original’ walls challenging the invaders in 1170, though elsewhere reputable sources speak of refurbishment and their refacing with ashlar masonry. A cinematic ‘graphic reconstruction’ on identifying a weak spot in the walls shows us a fortified town surrounded by water where timbered houses, walls and towers look thirteenth-century (if not later) and the latter are mysteriously contoured exactly like the Dublin (or Limerick) Castle built in the 1200s. We recognise the buttresses visible at a key stretch of the walls on Cook Street, but are these pre-invasion? The picturesque gate under St Audoen’s stands out, but evidently minus its Dublin City Council plaque dating it to 1240, and the crenellations are a (romanticising) feature, added centuries later.
Evidence revealed by osteoarchaeology leads to good re-enactments but is also driven towards foregone conclusions: soon after the invasion ‘Ireland became a two-tier society’. While academic interviewees refer to vassalage and overlords, the narrative is silent on pre-invasion feudal hierarchies and oversimplifies. A colonial élite undeniably took root, but had Ireland previously been an egalitarian society? Unsurprisingly, new settlers prospering in Dublin had a better diet and experienced less physical hardship than their native contemporaries ‘in rural [our emphasis] Ireland’. This is top-down and not comparing like with like. So English serfs back home dined on roast swan, watching their minions toil for them, unlike their Irish rural counterparts? The ‘foreigners’ enjoyed greater status than ‘the Irish’, and for centuries ‘these inequalities would colour the politics of a troubled island’. Seemingly one remains a foreigner forever, and on screen a ragged and forlorn family cling to a craggy mound. But the digs unearth great finds, like a delightful Bristolian wine jug with spouts shaped as peering faces, and a Compostela shell. Digital imaging brings to life the Augustinian abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, which gave its name to the Thomas Street area. Instantly recognisable to many of us is the precise and engaging artwork of Stephen Conlin, whose skill would not have misled viewers if engaged to reconstruct fortified Dublin c. 1170.
Some of the invaders retained feudal connections with Normandy, but to hear that they were not all ‘British’ was cringeworthy. The splendid parchment cartulary of the church of St Taurin (Évreux, Normandy), once a Benedictine monastery, was intriguing. It records a charter by which Hugh de Lacy (consolidating familial ties) ‘gave’ to St Taurin’s the churches of Fore in Westmeath, the site of ‘an ancient Gaelic monastery’. Was this not just a land grab? The paradox that the invaders brought us closer to continental Europe but have today receded fused into a forceful projection of this far more welcome connection to France. Blatant jubilation at this otherwise contrived continuity of (pre-Reformation) Franco-Irish links was projected with sweet music and McElhatton’s tone shifting from grave to upbeat. Sources were not satisfactorily explored, though Gerald of Wales’s propagandist spin on history was alluded to, and the end was rushed but less condemning: the English county system facilitated today’s local GAA loyalties.
In historical narrative, the meanings behind every word matter, especially when history is popularised. At times Invasion strays off course into some forced longue durée identity arguments, disconnected from scholarly rigour and firing too many salvoes. A pity, because this production is impressive at times and the same team had given us the compelling docu-drama Vikings: Fire and Blood (RTÉ, 2022).
Sylvie Kleinman is Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History, Trinity College, Dublin.