Battlefield in Callan North,callan South

The battle of Callan c. 1407. At the start of the 15th century the position of lord lieutenant was increasingly irrelevant to those outside the Pale. In May 1401 when Henry IV appointed his son Thomas of Lancaster (the Duke of Clarence) to the office, he was provided with few resources. Lancaster appointed Stephen le Scrope (le Scroope or Lescrop) as his deputy, but both of them had periods of absence and le Scrope duly appointed the earl of Ormond to act in his stead when he was away. Sometime after Michaelmas (29 September) 1406 le Scrope was back in Ireland and a year later, on 14 September, with a large army, he successfully campaigned against ‘Mac Murch’ (possibly of the Mac Murchada clan). Days afterwards it was discovered that Walter de Burgh, from the Ulster branch of the de Burghs (and distinct from the Connacht de Burghs) and Tadhg Ua Cerbhaill, chief of Eile (Ely), in modern County Offaly had joined forces to despoil the lands around Kilkenny. Consequently, le Scrope took his army towards Callan to hunt them out. Sources for the subsequent battle are contained within the Annals of Clonmacnoise (Murphy 1896, 327), the Annals of Connacht (Freeman 1944, 399), the Annals of Loch Cé (Hennessy 1871, vol. 2, 121-3), the Annals of Ulster (Mac Carthy 1893, vol. 3, 57), the Annals of the Four Masters (O’Donovan 1845-51, vol. 3, 791) and the Antiquities and history of Ireland (Ware 1705, 65). The date of the battle remains uncertain. Ware (1705, 65) states that it occurred sometime after the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (14 September), when le Scrope defeated Mac Murch. He also records that le Scrope was still joined by the force that had fought Mac Murch, namely the 4th earl of Ormond James Butler, the 6th earl of Desmond Thomas FitzJohn, the prior of Kilmainham and the ‘muster’ of Meath. It is thought that, despite the imprecise (or absent) figures in the sources, that the armies involved were several hundred strong. Ware (ibid.) indicates an exaggerated number of dead, with Tadhg ‘and eight hundred others’ killed. Of the battle itself, there is very meagre detail. All that can be said with certainty it that that le Scrope's army arrived at Callan, engaged de Burgh and Tadhg (the former was captured and, as noted above, the latter was killed) and drove their forces from the field. To the Irish annals, Tadhg's death was of great significance. The Annals of Ulster (Mac Carthy 1893, vol. 3, 57) referred to him as the 'best general protector that was in Ireland’, whilst the Annals of Loch Cé (Hennessy 1871, vol. 2, 121-3) recorded that he was a 'patron of the learned of Ernn and Alba’, with the Annals of Clonmacnoise (Murphy 1896, 327) stating his love and championing of the arts and ‘poetry and musick of Ireland and Scotland'. However, there was little political or military impact with this battle and, soon after, le Scrope returned to England and, once again, left the earl of Ormond to act as his deputy. The precise location of this battlefield is unknown. Compiled by: Dr Gavin Hughes Date of upload: 11 May 2022