The Battle of Faughart (or Battle of Dundalk) was fought on 14 October 1318 between a Hiberno-Norman force led by John de Bermingham (later created 1st Earl of Louth) and Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick, and a Scottish and Irish army commanded by Prince Edward Bruce, Earl of Carrick, brother of King Robert I of Scots ('Robert the Bruce'). It was a battle of the First War of Scottish Independence and more precisely the Irish Bruce Wars. The defeat and death of Bruce at the battle ended the attempt to revive the High Kingship of Ireland. It also ended, for the time being, King Robert's attempt to open up a second front against the English in the Wars of Scottish Independence. A united Gaelic realm Although King Robert's victory over King Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 had effectively secured the independence of the Kingdom of Scotland, it did not bring the Scots' war with England any closer to an end. Even repeated Scots raids into the northern counties of England had little effect on an English king seemingly blind to political and military realities. Something more decisive was needed to end the stalemate. It came in 1315 with an invitation from Ireland. Since the time of Henry II (), the Kings of England had also claimed to be the Lords of Ireland. English settlers had taken root in Ireland, chiefly along the eastern seaboard, north and south of Dublin. But Gaelic-Irish kings and lords still enjoyed a large measure of autonomy, especially in the north and west, and English control was often of a fluctuating nature. 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. He sent envoys to the native Irish kings and clergy with letters invoking the common ancestry of the two nations, and offering to help them recover their liberty. Domnall Ó Neill, king of Tír Eoghain, responded, asking for aid against the English and offering the kingship of Ireland to King Robert's brother, Prince Edward Bruce, who was Earl of Carrick in the Peerage of Scotland. The Bruce brothers are believed to have been