The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

Execution was not customary in late medieval Ireland, unless public outrage were stirred, but lords could impose punishments of death or mutilation. In 1500 Maguire ordered the hanging of Melaghlin Bradach ('the thief') O'Flanagan. There were also the sanctions of exile and casting adrift. A man who was poor, or unable to summon kin or friends to redeem him, could legally be hanged by those whom he had injured. If the defendant refused to pay compensation, the plaintiff could seize his property or that of his kin, uner the rule of 'kincogish', the collective responsibility of the kin. It was this private seizure of property condemned by English legislators. But they accepted pragmatically some brehon law principles, such as 'kincogish', in their dealings with the Irishry; the two systems were not always radically estranged in practice. Brehon law began to retreat after 1541, when the king's Irish subjects came under his protection and were subject to his justice. But the notion of justice, as opposed to law, still seemed remote in some parts of Ireland and for many of its people. A conversation between Captain Docwra, commander of the English garrison in Derry, and Niall Garve O'Donnell at the end of the Tudor century revealed the awesome and arbitrary powers which the last generation of Gaelic lords still claimed:

'The country [of Inishowen] is mine,' saith he [O'Donnell], 'and so is all Tirconnell, and I will use and govern it to my own pleasure . . . Let the Queen do with her rights what she will, Inishowen is mine, and were there but one cow in the country, that cow would I take and use as mine own.'
'And how would you provide for the poor people to live?' said I.
'I care not,' saith he. 'Let a thousand die, I pass not of a pin; and for the people, they are my subjects. I will punish, exact, cut, [tax], and hang, if I see occasion, where and whensoever I list.'