Irish Bardic Revolution & Its Letter Changes 1200 CE

(November 18, 2024, updated December 25, 2024) In May 1169, Anglo-Norman mercenaries landed in Ireland at the request of Diarmait mac Murchada (Dermot MacMurragh) who was the deposed King of Leinster. He sought their help in regaining his kingship. They achieved this within weeks and raided neighboring kingdoms. This military intervention was sanctioned by King Henry II of England. In return, Diarmait had sworn loyalty to Henry and promised land to the Normans. 

In October 1171, King Henry landed with a large army to assert control over both the Anglo-Normans and the Irish. This intervention was supported by the Roman Catholic Church who saw it as a means of suppressing Druidry, suppressing the still fairly independent Irish Christian church, and way of gaining tax revenue.  

Henry granted Strongbow Leinster as a fiefdom, declared the Norse-Irish towns to be crown land, and arranged the synod of Cashel to take over the Irish church. Many Irish kings also submitted to him, likely in the hope that he would curb Norman expansion, but Henry granted the unconquered kingdom of Meath to Hugh de Lacy. After Henry's departure in 1172, fighting between the Normans and Irish continued. 

The 1175 Treaty of Windsor acknowledged Henry as overlord of the conquered territory and Ruaidrí as overlord of the remainder of Ireland, with Ruaidrí also swearing fealty to Henry. The treaty soon collapsed: Norman lords continued to invade Irish kingdoms and the Irish continued to attack the Normans. In 1177, Henry adopted a new policy. He declared his son John to be the "Lord of Ireland" (i.e. claiming the whole island) and authorised the Norman lords to conquer more land. The territory they held became the Lordship of Ireland, part of the Angevin Empire. The Normans' success has been attributed to military superiority and castle-building, the lack of a unified opposition from the Irish and the support of the church for Henry's intervention.

After this takeover of Ireland the Norman lords wanted to secure their lands by appearing Irish. It was then they started supporting local bards and marrying into noble Irish families. But the bards. by using Druid Akkadian phrases as names in their stories helped preserve the old ways in their tales while at the same time providing a deeper level of meaning to these stories to those listeners still familiar with the old ways.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Norman_invasion_of_Ireland

The 18 letters of traditional Irish from one surviving branch before the modern alphabet reform between 1947 and 1958. Compared to the Elizabethan era the alphabet had drastically shrunk indicating that much of the original Druid Akkadian derived Irish language had been lost.

Reference

Joyce, Patrick Weston (1878) A grammar of the Irish language for the use of schools. Online at: https://archive.org/details/grammarofirishla00joycrich/mode/2up?ref=ol