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1579

The Battle of Gort na Tiobraide / Springfield

In 1579, a force sent from the Lord Justice's camp near Kilmallock was defeated at Gort na Tiobraide, modern Springfield in County Limerick. A separately preserved Broadford oral tradition connects the battle site with the deaths of pipers.
Location
Gort na Tiobraide, identified with modern Springfield near Broadford, County Limerick. Precise battlefield mapping remains under investigation.
Date note
The precise day remains under investigation.
Research status
Approved

Event

The Annals of the Four Masters record that the Lord Justice, Sir William Drury, was encamped near Kilmallock. A force of three or four captains and four hundred English and Irish soldiers went to search Coill-mhor. At Gort-na-Tiobrad they encountered John and James Oge, described as the young sons of the Earl of Desmond. The annal reports that the Lord Justice's force was defeated, with Captains Herbert, Eustace and Spris and three hundred men killed.

Around 1980, during a festival in Broadford, an elderly former pipe-band piper told the young John Hunt that the nearby Springfield area was historically important for piping and associated the battle with the deaths of pipers. This is preserved as local oral-history evidence. The documentary passage currently verified confirms the battle but does not mention pipers.

During the same encounter the elderly piper played The Dawning of the Day / Fáinne Geal an Lae and an unidentified jig remembered from his youth. He did not claim that either tune was connected to the Springfield battle.

Evidence

The tiers identify different evidential routes. They are not a simple hierarchy of true and false.

TIER 1 — DOCUMENTARY HISTORY

Research in progress

TIER 2 — LOCAL HISTORY & FOLKLORE

Research in progress

TIER 3 — HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION & CONTEXT

Research in progress

Record CHR-000001