Even repeated Scots raids into the northern counties of England had little effect on an English king seemingly blind to political and military realities.
In continuing the war with Scotland, Edward II had made heavy demands on the Irish, both for men and materials, pushing the country close to the point of financial ruin.
King Robert, who long maintained political and personal contacts with the aristocrats of Ulster, decided that Irish discontent could be usefully employed against his enemy.
[citation needed] In May 1315 Edward Bruce landed with an expeditionary force at Larne[4] near Carrickfergus Castle, ready to conjure up the spirit of "Gaelic internationalism".
Depending on local sources of supply, Bruce's campaigns began to resemble nothing more than large-scale plundering raids, carried out at the expense of an already desperate peasantry.
In these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the supposed kinship of the Celts failed to materialise, and for most Irish the Scots were little better, if not worse, than the English settlers with whom they were familiar.
In the end, rather than acting as a true High King, Bruce could wield power in only parts of the north, and he was held there by problems of provisioning and supply.
In contrast to Barbour, the Lanercost Chronicle, the chief English source, says that Bruce approached Dundalk "with a great army of Scots which had already arrived in Ireland."
It would seem that the three English commanders—John de Bermingham, Edmund, Lord Carrick, and Roland Jorz, Archbishop of Armagh—were themselves attacked, though in a somewhat impetuous and haphazard fashion.