412 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



the Norman invasion in 1172, but there can be no doubt that 

 from that time onwards Ireland has never been without horses of 

 a large size, at least in the English Pale. The passage cited 

 above (p. 389) from Giraldus Cambrensis shows that the Nor- 

 mans brought with them to Ireland the same breed of large 

 horses which their ancestors had carried into England, and on 

 which they charged the Saxons at Hastings. 



Nor can it be doubted that similar 'great horses' were from 

 time to time imported as well as bred in Ireland, for the Nor- 

 mans, though in many respects becoming ipsis Hibernis Hiber- 

 niores, retained their own method of warfare, and consequently 

 required horses of large size to mount their men-at-arms. Thus 

 when the Pale was troubled by an irruption of the O'Byrnes 

 and O'Moores in 1372, who burned the priory of Athy, John 

 Colton 1 , the first Master of Gonville Hall (now Gonville and 

 Caius College), and successively Dean of St Patrick's, Chan- 

 cellor of Ireland, and Archbishop of Armagh, raised a force of 

 26 knights and a large body of men-at-arms, and fell upon the 

 Irish and defeated them with great slaughter. Even within the 

 then narrow limits of the Pale there must have been a con- 

 siderable number of horses capable of carrying heavily-armed 

 men. With the gradual extension of the area occupied by 

 Norman, and later English settlers, the 'great horses ' must 

 have spread likewise and the native Hobbies must have con- 

 stantly been crossed with the larger strain. The same process 

 continued under the Tudors and the Stuarts. A single instance 

 will suffice. Dr Winter, an Englishman, and a graduate of 

 Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who became Provost of Trinity 

 College, Dublin (1652 1660), was a great lover of horses and 

 had brought over horses of peculiar merit from England, some 

 of which were stolen from him by the Irish army on one of his 

 journeys with Cromwell's Commissioners 2 . This loss was amply 

 compensated by substantial grants of land in King's Co., and 



1 J. Venn, History of Gonville and Caius College, Vol. in. p. 9. Bishop 

 Eeeves (Irish Arch. Soc. 1850) has published Colton's account of his Visitation 

 of the Diocese of Derry, 1397, with a valuable introduction. 



2 J. P. Mahaffy, An Epoch of Irish History : Trinity College, Dublin, Its 

 Foundation and Early Fortunes (1903), p. 301. 



