By Carol Elliott
So our history books tell us that in 1528, there was an influx of 20,000 Irish people in Pembrokeshire (and maybe that’s why pirates love our coastline).
I recently attended a talk by Simon Hancock on “Colonists, Migrants and Refugees in the History of Pembrokeshire”. Although it was not about Neyland per se, the talk did show how Neyland would have been impacted by these “Colonists, Migrants and Refugees”. The talk reviewed the arrival of the Romans, Desai from Ireland, Normans, Flemish and English who all came to Pembrokeshire as colonists. His talk stated “that perhaps the strongest link has been the constant story of Irish migration to Pembrokeshire” and he mentioned that in 1528 …. it is said …. that 20,000 Irish people came to Pembrokeshire and settled in Tenby and all the way along the coast from Haverfordwest to St Davids. This intrigued me, as Neyland has such close ties to the Irish Packet Steamers, where my great grandfather worked, and as I have ancient Irish in my own DNA. So I did some more research which I hope you will find interesting ….
On 8 July, 1528, a Welsh noble, Rhys ap Gruffydd, the grandson of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, was living in Carew Castle. He wrote to Cardinal Wolsey (Henry VIII’s top minister in London) claiming that 20,000 Irish people had arrived around Pembrokeshire in the previous twelve months, naming the stretch from Haverfordwest along the sea to St David’s, with Tenby “almost all Irish, rulers and commons.” That claim, is preserved in the official Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, and it is the number that historians still quote when they talk about “a sudden, visible Irish surge into the Milford Haven area”.
This is recorded in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. 4 (Part II).
Was it literally 20,000 Irish that came? Well 20,000 was recorded but it was probably exaggerated. Most historians think it was an inflated alarm call, but still a sign that thousands likely came in 1527–1528. Either way, it tells us how connected we were to Ireland, and how quickly politics across the Irish Sea had landed on our Pembrokeshire coast and in our villages along the Cleddau.
How we got there: Normans, Geraldines, and a sea-bridge to Munster
Long before Tudor politics, Pembrokeshire was the “springboard into Ireland”. After the Normans pushed into Wales after the 1066 invasion, the Norman knights and gentry families of Pembrokeshire, helped lead the 1169 invasion of Ireland. Out of that story came the Geraldines (descended from Gerald de Windsor), later splitting into the great Irish houses of Kildare and Desmond.
Gerald de Windsor (c. 1075–1135) was a Norman knight appointed constable of Pembroke Castle after the Norman conquest of south-west Wales. He married Nest ferch Rhys, a Welsh princess of Deheubarth, and their descendants became the powerful FitzGerald (Geraldine) dynasty, which played a leading role in the Norman invasion and governance of Ireland
Why Ireland mattered to the English crown
To the Tudors, Ireland was a strategic flank: thinking that whoever controlled Ireland could threaten or protect England’s west. But beyond Dublin’s English Pale, power rested with big regional lords, especially the Geraldine Earls of Desmond in Munster and their rivals, the Butlers/Ormonds in Kilkenny. The Ormond and Butler lines, with houses deeply rooted in Irish aristocracy, were also present and integrated into Pembrokeshire’s gentry. When those factions feuded (or defied London), the ripples crossed straight to the Milford Haven waterway - from Cork or Waterford. That’s why our coastline, Neyland, Milford, Hakin, the pills and creeks, kept showing up in high politics in London.
The letter of 8 July, 1528 is preserved in Carmarthen and it states “they are in most part rascals and of the dominion of the rebel Earl of Desmond!
The local gentry who went to Ireland
Sir John Perrot of Haroldston (just outside Haverfordwest) served as Lord Deputy of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I (1584–88) and the Perrot family were key players in Ireland.
The Wogans of Picton had established earlier Irish authority: Sir John Wogan was Chief Justiciar of Ireland around 1295–1313, another deep, older Pembrokeshire–Ireland tie.
The Philipps of Picton were a dominant county family for centuries; their political weight and trading interests kept Picton a hub in the wider Irish Sea world.
The Butlers in Pembrokeshire: members of a Butler lineage are documented locally, e.g., John Butler of Coedcanlas (High Sheriff, 1608) and Thomas Butler of Scoveston (High Sheriff, 1644–45).
On “Carew”: the Carew family at Carew Castle were themselves heavyweights in Irish administration, as Sir George Carew, later Earl of Totnes, was President of Munster during Elizabeth’s wars.
1527–1528: Why so many Irish, so fast?
Rhys ap Gruffydd’s 1528 letter blames arrivals mostly from Desmond’s Munster dominion. The economic engine was shipping: Irish crews and skippers were thick on the water, and even local shipowners preferred them. Trade shaded into piracy (and back again), which made the flow both profitable and deniable. That’s why a number like 20,000, even if rhetorical, felt believable enough to get attention in London.
“Small creeks and obscure places”: that’s why pirates loved the Pembrokeshire coastline
In 1569, Queen Elizabeth I’s Tudor government issued A Proclamation against the maintenance of pirates. It wasn’t just a general swipe at seafaring crime, it was a direct response to a real, growing problem. By the mid-16th century, piracy in and around the British Isles was blurring into legitimate trade and privateering. Many so-called “pirates” were actually merchant captains or privateers who sometimes operated with legal commissions to attack enemy shipping. Sir John Perrot of Pembrokeshire was not beyond a bit of “Piracy” himself.
The Queens’ proclamation complained that armed vessels would:
“resort secretly into small Creekes and obscure places of this Realme for reliefe of victayles,”
In other words, they would hide in sheltered inlets, resupply with food and water, and then slip back out to sea, claiming they had the Queen’s permission to be there. The Milford Haven waterway was singled out by the Queen in the Remembrancer Rolls (1562) which called Milford “ye grete resort and sucoure of all piratts”.
Some of these creeks and “obscure places” the Queen Elizabeth’s officers were worried about include:
- Hakin – offering shelter and ship repair areas.
- Hazelbeach – tucked between Neyland and Llanstadwell, with a small, easily overlooked foreshore.
- Wear Point and Jenkins Point – hidden curves along the shore, shielded from the main haven.
- Cleddau Pill – one of many narrow tidal inlets feeding into the haven, good for concealment.
- Castle Pill – a winding inlet with high banks, historically used for boatbuilding.
- Pwllcrochan Pill – another example of a narrow, tidal creek perfect for disappearing from view.
From the main haven channel, these spots can be invisible until you’re almost inside them. In the 1500s, with no coast guard patrols and slow communication, that made them ideal hiding and resupply points.
And Pembrokeshire produced pirates of its own: Howell Davis (of Milford Haven) and the notorious Barti Ddu / Bartholomew Roberts (born near Haverfordwest) became two of the most successful pirates of the early 1700s, later than the Tudor moment, but part of a long local tradition of seafaring on the edge of law.
So…was it really 20,000?
The hard number we have from the time is Rhys’s “20,000 in twelve months,” in his letter dated 8 July 1528. That’s the entry historians cite from Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, vol. 4, pt. 2.
Plausibility check: Wales’s population was a few hundred thousand total at that time; 20,000 into Pembrokeshire in one year is massive. It may be political exaggeration, but one anchored in a real surge tied to the Desmond–Butler turmoil and brisk cross-Irish channel shipping. Think several thousand rather than twenty. (The panic tone is the point: Wolsey was supposed to act.)
What it did locally: Even a few thousand would have changed the feel of Tenby, Haverfordwest, and the Haven, new crews on ships, more Irish traders in markets, and “Irish” power in some town offices, exactly the things Rhys complained about. They also settled and inter-married with the local populations.
Why this is relevant now
Because it explains the DNA of our area ……. and for those of you, who have done their own DNA test only to find they have Irish ethnicity …… it shows our Irish connections even though our families may have lived in Pembrokeshire for centuries.
So Neyland isn’t just a dot on the map; it sits on a channel that shaped British and Irish history, Normans crossing over, Geraldines rising, Tudor power struggling to police a coastline full of creeks and coves, Irish politics arriving on our doorstep, and pirates taking full advantage of the geography. When we look out over our estuary, we are looking at the reason why our area of the Haven mattered. We are on the route by which people (possibly our distant ancestors) came, stayed, and made Pembrokeshire what it is.