Last Struggles of the Clans. 1558-1603.

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CHAPTER VII** *

The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans***

1558-1603**

Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding,

Loudly the war cries arise on the gale;

Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding,

To join the thick squadrons in Saimear’s green vale.

On, every mountaineer, Strangers to flight and fear!

Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh

Bonnaught and gallowglass, Throng from each mountain pass

On for old Erin, O’Donnell Aboo.” -  M’Gann.

The doctrines of the Reformation had never taken root in Ireland. Both the Anglo-Irish within, and the Irish tribes without the Pale, had been too much engaged with incessant internecine wars to have any time to spare for questioning the foundations of their belief. Many people in Dublin and elsewhere, not thinking the Church seriously threatened, had acquiesced in the changes made by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. while still hoping that the nation would yet return to its old faith. During Mary’s short reign their anticipations seemed to be realised, only to be doomed to perpetual disappointment under the long and determinedly Protestant reign of Elizabeth.

As soon as the new queen was firmly established, a parliament was assembled at Dublin in order to restore the Protestant religion to the position it had occupied before Queen Mary’s accession. Every holder of office or benefice was to acknowledge the queen as supreme head of the Church. Conscientious Roman Catholics could not take such an oath, and saw themselves excluded from every post of honour or profit.

At the same time the use of the Book of Common Prayer was enjoined on every church in Dublin, and printed Bibles were set out for public reading in Christ Church and S. Patrick’s. All the citizens were ordered to attend the new service under penalty of a fine. At first the Irish government connived at a good deal of evasion. Many people escaped scot-free by going to mass in the morning and to church in the evening.

The parliament, on the grounds that English was not universally understood, and that printing an Irish version would be difficult, obtained permission to have the Prayer Book read in a Latin translation. To an audience of unlettered laymen a Latinised Prayer Book would seem almost identical with the mass.

But the breach between Elizabeth and the Papacy widened until there was no room for such compromises. Soon a proclamation was issued against meetings of friars and priests in Dublin. Every man in Ireland was now compelled to range himself definitely on one side or the other. The day for Laodiceanism was past. The majority of the Anglo-Irish adhered to the old faith, which also received the strong and unwavering support of all the unsubdued native clans without exception.

The viceroy and his officials, supported by some of the nobles, notably the Ormonds, formed the opposite party. Dublin, being the seat of government, was forced, rather against its will, to conform to the religion of the royal representatives.

The antagonism of the greater part of Ireland to the emissaries of Queen Elizabeth was political as well as religious. Long before the Reformation the Tudor monarchs had determined to bring the whole country under the English authority. They were not satisfied with the uncertain tenure of three or four counties near Dublin and a very nominal suzerainty over the rest of the land.

So Henry VIII. crushed the semi-independent Geraldines, and even the Catholic Mary drove out her co-religionists, the O’Moores and O’Connors, from the districts of Offaly and Leix. In compliment to the queen and her husband, Philip of Spain, this conquered territory was formed into two new shires called King’s and Queen’s County, with Philipstown and Maryborough as their chief towns.

Elizabeth carried the policy of her predecessors to a successful issue after a fierce struggle, which lasted the whole of her reign, often threatening to end in the utter defeat of the English and their expulsion from the country. The O’Neills of Ulster were the leaders of the Irish resistance to religious and political innovations.

The city of Dublin, under the watchful eye of the able governors whom Elizabeth appointed, slowly became Protestant. There must have been grave searchings of heart among the halting citizens when the roof and south side of Christ Church Cathedral fell in only a few years after its adaptation to the reformed docrines.

A little later a plague, the worst recorded in its annals, so devastated the city that grass grew in the streets, and the mayor fled Out of the pestilential town to hold his court at Glassmanogue, near Phibsborough, while the viceroy Sidney removed the seat of government to Drogheda.

These events were probably interpreted as the judgments of Providence on a heretical people. The municipality is found sometimes energetically assisting the Protestant and Anglicising party, sometimes so backward in the service as to call down the censure of the authorities. Thus, in 1566, the Dubliners heard that Shane O’Neill was besieging Dundalk, and was likely to capture not only the town, but Lady Sidney, who was staying there and would be a useful hostage in Shane’s hands, while he negotiated with her husband.

They marched out at once under their mayor Sarsfield, forced O’Neill to raise the siege, and returned to Dublin with the lady, defeating on the way an attempt of the Cavan O’Reillys to intercept them. Sarsfield was knighted for his gallantry. Two years later, however, a subsequent mayor was fined £100 and committed to the Castle for refusing to perform his military duties.

In 1577 the citizens took part in a great constitutional protest. Sidney, presuming too much on his popularity and prestige, had ventured to impose a tax by virtue of the royal authority alone without obtaining the consent of an Irish parliament. A deputation, including Lord Howth and some leading Dublin men, was sent to petition the queen against taxation without representation. Elizabeth received them very graciously, though secretly annoyed by their opposition They were soon thrown into gaol for contumacy and resistance to royal command. Their sympathisers in Ireland were sent to Dublin Castle. But Sidney soon found his position untenable and was forced to procure the assent of the representatives of the Pale to his plans. The prisoners in both capitals were released.

In the meantime the policy of the Irish government in regard to the native clans was succeeding. The viceroys conciliated the great chiefs and tried to Anglicise them. They warred down the smaller men, or took hostages for their good behaviour. If an Irish leader proved amenable to neither treatment, they sowed discord in his sept, raised up a competitor from among his numerous brothers and cousins, and, if all else failed, compassed his death or capture by the treachery which the offer of a reward usually tended to produce. The O’Neills of Ulster, independent rulers of a whole province, accepted the English title of Earls of Tyrone.

oldwall.gif (19859 bytes)In 1585 Sir John Perrott held a parliament at Dublin, which was attended by many of the native warriors wearing, now for the first time, the English costume. The Irishmen felt very ridiculous in the tight and close dress then fashionable, which was such a contrast to their accustomed flowing mantles and brogues of soft, untanned leather. One felt he was giving such amusement to the populace that he begged Perrott to allow his chaplain to wear the Irish dress, so that the curious might be diverted from his own figure to a still stranger one beside him.

About the same time two men, belonging to the western tribe of the O’Connors, agreed to settle their differences by the English custom of trial by combat. The lists were erected at Dublin Castle, and, in the presence of the viceroy, the parties fought their judicial duel to the death. After a long struggle, one of them succeeded in cutting off his enemy’s head, which he presented to the Lord Lieutenant. It is hard to say why this barbarous and already obsolescent mode of legal procedure was allowed. It can hardly have tended to the civilising and refinement of either the city of Dublin or the clans of Connaught.

Towards the latter half of Elizabeth’s reign, the Irish beyond the Pale awoke to the designs on their independence. The resistance centred itself around the person of Owen Roe O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, a man remarkable for his ability both in war and diplomacy. He found it easy to unite his fellow countrymen by appealing to their common religion and nationality against the English, who were both heretics and aliens.

The effect of his intrigue, as far as Dublin was concerned, was seen in a revival of the activity of the O’Byrnes. Tyrone was still nominally loyal, but his secret allies made trouble everywhere. Once an over-hasty viceroy, burning to signalise his appointment by some striking success, pursued the O’Byrnes to their stronghold at Glenmalure, and, becoming entangled in a wooded and swampy ravine, suffered a complete defeat. In 1586 the mountaineers “singed the viceroy’s beard” by plundering his exchequer, though it lay not a hundred yards from the guns of the castle.

In 1587 Perrott, a governor honoured by the Irish for his justice and moderation, stooped to an act of unscrupulous perfidy, which brought, as such things do, its own Nemesis on the perpetrators. He wished to have some hold on O’Donnell, chief of Tyrconnell, the modern Donegal, and determined to effect his ends by entrapping his son, known as Owen Roe, or Red Hugh, and holding him as a hostage for his father’s good behaviour.

A peaceful merchantman, apparently trading in Spanish wine, put into Lough Swilly. Young Hugh received and accepted an invitation to go on board to taste the wares of the captain. But the ship itself and the hospitable skipper were alike chartered by the viceroy. As soon as the O’Donnell and his companions were safely aboard, the hatches were closed and the ship put out to sea, to the great consternation of the people, who already loved their brilliant young chief. Hugh was kept in honourable, but close, restraint in Dublin Castle. From that moment he was a bitter and irreconcilable enemy to the English power. His great ability made him a most dangerous foe.

He soon found means to escape. The cell, where he used to spend the night, overlooked the back gate of the castle and a wooden drawbridge, which spanned the moat. Hugh and some others let themselves down, in the dusk of a winter twilight, by a long rope on to the bridge, and fastened the gate on the outside, thus imprisoning their guards and ensuring a long start for themselves. They passed in safety and unnoticed through the narrow and dimly-lit streets of the town to the open country.

Their destination was the strong hold of the O’Tooles, near Glendalough, and their route lay across the shoulder of Three Rock Mountain, and over the jumble of hills that lies beyond. But the hardships of the flight told heavily on the fugitives. Their thin indoor shoes fell to pieces in the swamp, so that the gorse and sharp stones of the mountains tore their unprotected feet. By morning the soldiers were so close on their track that O’Toole dared not harbour the runaways, and, making a virtue of necessity, delivered the whole party to the troops. Hugh was brought back to his prison, and for the future was heavily shackled and closely watched.

A year later he again succeeded in making his escape. It was Christmas night, 1591. He had only two companions, Henry and Art O’Neill, sons of the celebrated Shane. They filed off their fetters and let themselves down by a rope into the castle moat, which, in accordance with the primitive sanitary notions of the age, was little better than a common sewer.

Half swimming, half wading, they passed through its mingled water and ooze to the opposite bank, where a guide waited to conduct them to the O’Byrne fastness in Glenmalure. They bore more to the westward this time, avoiding the higher hills near Dundrum, but a snowstorm came on while they were still on the bleak uplands. Henry O’Neill became separated from the party and was lost.

All night and next day they pressed on, sore distressed with the cold, for they had cast off their soiled outer garments on emerging from the moat. Art O’Neill, corpulent from much confinement and little exercise, broke down completely, and at last Hugh and he had to rest under a rock, while the guide ran on to Glenmalure.

The chief Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne sent out a party to their assistance. Hugh was revived with difficulty, but Art died in the arms of his rescuers. The young O’Donnell, though for months afterwards his feet, frostbitten and sore, could not support the weight of his body, was eager to return to Donegal.

The more practicable fords of the Liffey were watched by English troops sent to intercept the fugitive. Hugh eluded his foes by the bold course of crossing at a deep and dangerous ford not far from the Castle itself, probably somewhere near the modern O’Connell Bridge. He reached Ballyshannon in safety, and was soon installed as chief of the O’Donnell clan, in the room of his aged father.

Owen Roe O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, allied himself by marriage with his brilliant young neighbour of Tyrconnell. Tyrone’s bitterness against the government had been further increased by his quarrel with Sir Henry Bagenal, Marshal of Ireland. Mabel Bagenal and the earl had fallen in love, but their union was opposed by Sir Henry, who said Tyrone had a wife already. The earl replied that he was lawfully divorced, but Bagenal, unmoved, only answered by sending his sister in disgrace to Dublin.

Tyrone boldly followed her, and they were married in the house of a friend in the suburb of Drumcondra. Bagenal took the only revenge in his power by detaining the lady’s dowry. The marshal and his brother-in-law became irreconcilable enemies. In 1594 Tyrone and Hugh O’Donnell embarked on that great struggle which probably went nearer to gaining Irish independence than any similar effort before or since.

Amid these wars and rumours of wars Trinity College, Dublin, commenced its existence. It was founded with the avowed purpose of converting the Irish to the Protestant religion. By a liberal system of scholarships and an artful use of the native tongue in instruction, it was hoped that the cleverest heads of the nation would be brought within the range of English influence. The original idea is ascribed to that subtle politician Sir John Perrott, who did not stay to see his plans realised. Elizabeth lent the project her moral support. The City Council gladly gave a site. In 1591 “the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin,” started on its long and illustrious career. The political troubles in the North, and the severe financial straits in which the institution soon found itself, went near to strangling the young foundation at its birth. For several years it had to depend on voluntary contributions. Its estates were for the most part in the hands of rebels, who confiscated the revenues to their own purposes. No rents could be collected in Ulster, or, indeed, in any other part of Ireland.

In 1598 Tyrone, aided by O’Donnell, had defeated and slain his brother-in-law, Marshal Bagenal, at the Yellow Ford, near Armagh. The whole of Ireland was in a flame. The English troops, usually confident of their superiority over the irregular Irish guerrillas, were beaten again and again in open field until they lost their morale and disgraced themselves by panic flights and wholesale desertions.

The queen’s favourite, Essex, came to Ireland with 20,000 men. He marched from Dublin to subdue Munster and Leinster, but could only take a single castle. The O’Moores of Leix, or Queen’s County, killed so many of his gay soldiery near Maryborough that they called the scene of the battle the “Pass of the Plumes.”

Essex returned to the metropolis with a diminished army. After a short rest he went north to meet Tyrone in a conference. The Irish earl is said to have then suggested to Essex those projects of rebellion, which eventually resulted in his death on the block. He left Ireland amid the jeers of the people, who said he had only used his sword to make knights.

Perhaps the sole ray of consolation for the Dubliners during the last decade of the seventeenth century was the final suppression of the O’Byrnes. The same Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne, who had assisted O’Donnell to escape, was surprised in his mountain hold and put to death. The power of the two hill clans was broken at last, and Wicklow became a county subject to English law. The citizens could sleep quietly in their beds, and the Black Monday muster lost its raison d’etre.

Mountjoy was appointed to succeed Essex. He soon showed a thorough grasp of the problem. His methods were merciless, but successful. Forts were planted in the enemy’s territory, and his lands were ravaged until famine compelled a surrender. The Irish called in the Spaniards, who landed at Kinsale and began to fortify the position. But the viceroy marched thither, and besieged the invaders before they had time to establish themselves. Tyrone and O’Donnell came southwards with large armies to the rescue, and practically surrounded the small investing force. The English army was between the anvil and the hammer. Its eventual defeat was certain, for before long half its total strength had wasted away. The Irish were too eager to grasp the prize.

Against the advice of Tyrone, a night attack was resolved on. Some traitor gave the English warning, so that Mountjoy was fully prepared. The Irish lost their way, and spent the whole of a tempestuous night in aimless wanderings. Daybreak found them near the lines where the English army was drawn up, fully prepared for battle.

The viceroy saw their weariness and disorder, and promptly attacked. The battle was soon a mere rout. The English were completely victorious, Kinsale was forced to surrender, and Ireland was saved to Queen Elizabeth. The gallant O’Donnell died in exile a few months later, a worn-out and broken-hearted man.

Royalists, Roundheads, Catholics. 1603-‘60. To Chart Index. Home.