Images of Irish Pike Men in the 1590s

A reader (Hello Eoin) asked if I had any images of Irish pike men from the 1590s.  It was a little difficult to discern the detail in the small image in my last blog.  Looking through my collection I came across the image above.

As we can see these pike men belonging to Eoin Mac Ruirigh Ó Morda (Owny McRory O’More to the English) can be clearly made out.  They are carrying their pikes at the trail and have swords at their belts.  They wear clothes not unlike the Dungiven suit shown here.  You will notice the ionad is shorter and not just because of the cinching of the sword belt.



 

 

I find their helmets very interesting.  Some of them are wearing morions and so are very up to date for the times.  Others, in the upper left-hand corner are wearing helmets that look a couple of hundred years older.  I’m inclined to think that these were loot from Kilkenny Castle taken when New English Adventurers hired a band of Irish mercenaries and made a successful surprise attack on the Butler stronghold.  The place was thoroughly looted including the armoury. This military loot would have circulated throughout Leinster and might account for the source of the seemingly medieval helmets shown above. 

Here’s what Sir George Carew and the Earl of Thomond wrote about them to the English Privy Council. Ó Morda “Brought with him a troop of choyse pikes ..within half caliver shotte of us in our sight  all of his grosse being to the number of 500 foote strong wherof 20 were horse and 300 bonaghes the best furnished men for war and the best apparelled we have seen in the Kingdom.”

Peter Lombard says that O’Neill left some Tyrone soldiers with the Leinster Lords and the ‘bonaghes’ may have been them or those of Leinster we cannot be certain.  Whoever they were they made an impression.

This is an image from 1603 published in The Travel Album of Hieronymus Tielch and depicts ‘an Irish Lackey’.  I’m using it here because it once more gives us a clear image of the soldiers clothing.  That said it is also a the best image I have of the dart which the Kern were so renowned for casting with great accuracy.