Irish campaigns were very costly, and England was in those days by no means wealthy.

English armies in Ireland, after a short period spent in desultory warfare with light armed kernes in the fever-stricken Munster forests, began to melt away.

For many generations, therefore, England, adopting a policy of _divide et impera_, set clan against clan.

Later on, statecraft may be said to have supervened upon military tactics.

It consisted of attempts made by alternate threats and bribes to induce the chiefs to transform the clan organisation by the acceptance of English institutions.