seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Earl of Tyrconnell


by Leave a comment

The Flight of the Earls

On September 4, 1607, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, and about ninety followers depart from Lough Swilly for the European continent. It is known in Irish history as the “Flight of the Earls.” Their permanent exile is a watershed event in Irish history, symbolizing the end of the old Gaelic order.

After the defeat at the Siege of Kinsale in 1601, Hugh Roe O’Donnell of Tyrconnell travels to Spain to seek support from Philip III. Unsuccessful, he dies in Spain and is succeeded by his younger brother Rory O’Donnell.

The O’Neills and O’Donnells retain their lands and titles, although with much-diminished extent and authority. However, the countryside is laid bare in a campaign of destruction in 1602, which induces famine in 1603. Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, is pardoned under the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 and submits to the crown.

When King James VI and I takes the English throne in 1603, he quickly proceeds to issue pardons for the Irish lords and their rebel forces. Already reigning as king of Scotland, he has a better understanding of the advantages from working with local chiefs in the Scottish Highlands. However, as in other Irish lordships, the 1603 peace involves O’Neill losing substantial areas of land to his cousins and neighbors, who would be granted freeholds under the English system, instead of the looser arrangements under the former Brehon law system. This is not a new policy but is a well-understood and longstanding practice in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.

On September 10, 1602, the Prince of Tyrconnell has already died, allegedly assassinated, in Spain, and his brother succeeds him as 25th Chieftain of the O’Donnell clan. He is later granted the Earldom of Tyrconnell by King James I on September 4, 1603, and restored to a somewhat diminished scale of territories in Tyrconnell on February 10, 1604.

In 1605, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, begins to encroach on the former freedoms of the two Earls and The Maguire, enforcing the new freeholds, especially that granted in North Ulster to the O’Cahan chief. The O’Cahan had formerly been important subjects of the O’Neills and required protection; in turn, Chichester wants to reduce O’Neill’s authority. O’Cahan has also wanted to remove himself from O’Neill’s overlordship. An option is to charge O’Neill with treason if he does not comply with the new arrangements. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the same year makes it harder for Catholics to appear loyal to both the crown and the papacy. A lengthy legal battle however finds in O’Neill’s favor.

By 1607, O’Neill’s allies the Maguires and the Earl of Tyrconnell are finding it hard to maintain their prestige on lower incomes. They plan to seek Spanish support before news of the Battle of Gibraltar arrives. When their ship drops anchor, O’Neill seems to have joined them on impulse. He had three options:

  • Flee with his friends and hope for a reinvasion by Spain
  • Go to London and stay at court until his grievances are redressed
  • Do nothing and live on a reduced income as a large landowner in Ulster

Fearing arrest, they choose to flee to Continental Europe, where they hope to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help. However, earlier in 1607 the main Spanish fleet in Europe had been defeated by the Dutch in the Battle of Gibraltar. But the oft-repeated theory that they are all about to be arrested contradicts writer Tadhg Ó Cianáin, the main historical source on the Flight, who says at the start of his account that O’Neill heard news of the ship anchored at Rathmullen on Thursday September 6, and “took his leave of the Lord Justice (Chichester) the following Saturday.” They had been meeting at Slane for several days, and there is no proof that warrants for his arrest have been drawn up, nor is it a hurried departure.

Also, as the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) has been ended by the Treaty of London in 1604, King Philip III of Spain wants to remain at peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty. As a part of the peace proposals, a Spanish princess is to marry James’ son, Henry, though this never happens. Spain had also gone bankrupt in 1598. Tyrone ignores all these realities, remains in Italy, and persists with his invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.

The earls set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, with some of the leading Gaelic families in Ulster. Several leave their wives behind, hoping either to return or retrieve them later. They travel down Lough Swilly on a French ship. Their departure is the end of the old Gaelic order, in that the earls are descended from Gaelic clan dynasties that had ruled their parts of Ulster for centuries. They finally reach the Continent on October 4, 1607.

Their destination is Spain, but they disembark in France. The party proceeds overland to Spanish Flanders, some remaining in Leuven, while the main party continues to Italy. Tadhg Ó Cianáin subsequently describes the journey in great detail. While the party is welcomed by many important officials in the Spanish Netherlands, he makes no mention of any negotiations or planning between the earls and the Spanish to start a new war to regain the earls’ properties.

James I soon plants the O’Neill and O’Donnell lands with Protestant settlers, helping to sow the seeds of the present “Troubles.” O’Donnell dies in Rome in 1608 and O’Neill dies there also in 1616.

Ó Cianáin’s diary is important as the only continuous and contemporaneous account of the Flight. Its original title, Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn – the departure of the Chiefs of Ulster from Ireland – has been changed since the creation of the more dramatic phrase “Flight of the Earls” to the latter’s modern literal translation, Imeacht na nIarlaí.

The Flight of the Earls is a watershed event in Irish history, as the ancient Gaelic aristocracy of Ulster goes into permanent exile. Despite their attachment to and importance in the Gaelic system, the Earls’ ancestors had accepted their Earldoms from the English-run Kingdom of Ireland in the 1540s, under the policy of surrender and regrant. Some historians argue that their flight is forced upon them by the fallout from the Tudor conquest of Ireland, while others that it is an enormous strategic mistake that clears the way for the Plantation of Ulster.

From 1616, a number of bards outside Ulster have a poetic debate in the “Contention of the bards” and one of the arguments celebrates King James’s Gaelic-Irish Milesian ancestry through Malcolm III of Scotland. So, it is debatable whether the Gaelic order has ended or is evolving.

(Pictured: A bronze sculpture commemorating the Flight in Rathmullan, County Donegal)


by Leave a comment

Death of Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell

Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, PC, Irish politician, courtier and soldier, dies of apoplexy on August 14, 1691, in Limerick, County Limerick. He is also known by the nickname “Mad Dick” Talbot.

Talbot is born likely in 1630, probably in Dublin. He is one of sixteen children, the youngest of eight sons of William Talbot and his wife Alison Netterville. His father is a lawyer and the 1st Baronet Talbot of Carton, County Kildare. His mother is a daughter of John Netterville of Castletown, Kildare. The Talbots are descended from a Norman family that had settled in Leinster in the 12th century. They adhere to the Catholic faith, despite the founding of the Reformed Church of Ireland under Henry VIII. Little is recorded of Talbot’s upbringing. As an adult he grows to be unusually tall and strong by standards of the time.

Talbot marries Katherine Baynton in 1669, and they have two daughters, Katherine and Charlotte. Katherine dies in 1679. In 1681, he marries Frances Jennings, sister of Sarah Jennings, the future Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.

Talbot’s early career is spent as a cavalryman in the Irish Confederate Wars. Following a period on the European continent, he joins the court of James, Duke of York, then in exile following the English Civil War, becoming a close and trusted associate. After the 1660 restoration of James’s older brother, Charles, to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, he begins acting as agent or representative for Irish Catholics attempting to recover estates confiscated after the Cromwellian conquest, a role that defines the remainder of his career. James converts to Catholicism in the late 1660s, strengthening his association with Talbot.

When James takes the throne in 1685, Talbot’s influence increases. He oversees a major purge of Protestants from the Irish Army, which had previously barred most Catholics. James creates him Earl of Tyrconnell and later makes him Viceroy, or Lord Deputy of Ireland. He immediately begins building a Catholic establishment by admitting Catholics to many administrative, political and judicial posts.

Talbot’s efforts are interrupted by James’s 1688 deposition by his Protestant son-in-law William of Orange. He continues as a Jacobite supporter of James during the subsequent Williamite War in Ireland, but also considers a peace settlement with William that would preserve Catholic rights. Increasingly incapacitated by illness, he dies of a stroke on August 14, 1691, shortly before the Jacobite defeat. He is thought to have been buried in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick. By depriving the Jacobites of their most experienced negotiator, his death possibly has a substantial impact on the terms of the Treaty of Limerick that ends the war.

Talbot’s widow, Frances, and his daughter, Charlotte, remain in France, where Charlotte marries her kinsman, Richard Talbot, son of William Talbot of Haggardstown. Their son is Richard Francis Talbot. Talbot’s other daughter, Katherine, becomes a nun. An illegitimate son, Mark Talbot, serves as an officer in France before his death in the Battle of Luzzara in 1702. Talbot’s estate in nearby Carton, renamed Talbotstown, is uncompleted at the time of his death. Tyrconnell Tower on the site is originally intended by him as a family mausoleum to replace the existing vault at Old Carton graveyard but is also left unfinished.

Talbot is controversial in his own lifetime. His own Chief Secretary, Thomas Sheridan, later describes him as a “cunning dissembling courtier […] turning with every wind to bring about his ambitious ends and purposes.” Many 19th and early 20th century historians repeat this view. Recent assessments have suggested a more complex individual whose career was defined by personal loyalty to his patron James and above all by an effort to improve the status of the Irish Catholic gentry, particularly the “Old English” community to which he belonged.

(Pictured: Watercolour portrait of Richard Talbot by John Bulfinch (d.1728) after painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller)


by Leave a comment

Death of Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, Archbishop of Tuam

Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, Irish Franciscan and theologian, founder of St. Anthony’s College, Leuven, and Archbishop of Tuam, dies in Madrid, Spain on November 18, 1629.

Ó Maolchonaire is born in the townland of Figh, civil parish of Tibohine, barony of Frenchpark, County Roscommon. His father and mother are Fíthil and Onóra Ó Maolchonaire. Two other sons survive to adulthood, Maoilechlainn and Firbisigh. They belong to a well-known family of historians and poets. He is brought up in the family profession.

Ó Maolchonaire studies for the priesthood at Salamanca, entering the Irish college founded in 1592. He first studies the liberal arts and philosophy. In 1593 he translates into Irish a short Castilian catechism by Jerónimo de Ripalda SJ. The original is a simple catechetical work written in Aristotelian master-pupil dialogue. According to Mícheál Mac Craith, Ó Maolchonaire’s translation pointedly refers to the Irish as Eirinnach rather than Gaedheal.

After five years at the Salamanca Irish college, Ó Maolchonaire leaves to join the Franciscan province of Santiago. Aodh Mac Cathmhaoil is among his classmates in the Salamanca Franciscan friary. They and nine of their peers in the Santiago province are later raised to the episcopacy, an unprecedented development in the history of the order.

At the height of the Nine Years’ War, Ó Maolchonaire sails to Ireland where he serves as a confessor and preacher to troops under the command of Hugh O’Neill and Hugh Roe O’Donnell. In 1601, they request a bishopric for Ó Maolchonaire “in recognition of his diligence, commending his sound judgment on Irish affairs.” After the disaster of Kinsale in 1601, he accompanies O’Donnell to Spain as his confessor and adviser, hoping to see a renewal of Spanish military intervention in Ireland.

In 1602, Ó Maolchonaire attempts to get approval for O’Donnell to meet Philip III in person, but they are kept at arm’s length by the Spanish court. During this time, they also drafted an official complaint against the Jesuit superiors of the Irish college at Salamanca over presumed discrimination in favour of Old English students at the expense of students from Connacht and Ulster.

While waiting for a response to his repeated calls for military support in Ireland, O’Donnell becomes seriously ill and dies at Simancas, being assisted on his deathbed by Ó Maolconaire. In keeping with his patronage of the order of friars minor in Donegal, O’Donnell is buried in the Franciscan habit. Ó Maolchonaire accompanies the remains to their last resting place in the Franciscan church at Valladolid. He continues to press for military support after O’Donnell’s death. He participates in an abandoned maritime expedition which reaches Achill Sound in 1603 but never lands in Ireland. He subsequently assists the Spanish councils of state and war to stem the flow of Irish military migrants and their dependents in Spain.

As adviser to Puñonrostro, the king’s appointee as protector of Irish exiles in Spain, Ó Maolchonaire helps to secure funds for widows, orphans and clerics. Trained as a chronicler and genealogist, he sponsors the entry of Irish soldiers into Spanish military orders and successfully calls for the promotion of Henry O’Neill, second eldest son of the earl of Tyrone, as colonel of Irish infantry units in Flanders, the O’Neill tercio in 1604.

In 1606, the Franciscan general chapter is held in Toledo where Ó Maolchonaire is selected as minister-provincial of the Irish friars minor. The most notable act of his tenure as provincial is the founding of a new Irish Franciscan college at Leuven in the Habsburg Netherlands. A year before his appointment, he begins his efforts in earnest with an appeal to the Spanish king. The loss of five Franciscan houses during the Nine Years’ War makes a new foundation essential. In response, Philip III instructs Albert VII, Archduke of Austria, to provide a perpetual grant for a new college in the university town of Leuven. Ó Maolchonaire’s part in founding the college clearly influences the Catholic pastoral mission to Ireland during the seventeenth century. The first and most active Irish printing press on the continent is long in operation at Leuven.

After Hugh O’Neill and Rory O’Donnell leave Ireland in 1607, Ó Maolconaire accompanies them from Douai to Rome as interpreter and advisor. Christopher St. Laurence, baron of Howth, implicates him in a plot to seize Dublin Castle and raises a new rebellion just before the Flight of the Earls. In recognition of his losses, Philip III and Paul V offer O’Neill the concession of Ó Maolchonaire’s promotion to the archbishopric of Tuam. On Sunday, May 3, 1609, he is consecrated archbishop by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini in the centre of Rome at the Chiesa Santo Spirito in Sassia. He remains in Rome until his appointment as archbishop of Tuam before returning to Madrid on behalf of Hugh O’Neill.

In response to the 1613–15 Parliament of Ireland, Ó Maolchonaire writes from Valladolid a remonstrance to the Catholic members of the parliament, rebuking them for assenting to the bill of attainder that confiscated the estates of O’Neill, O’Donnell and their adherents. As Archbishop of Tuam, he never takes possession of his episcopal see, governing through vicars general. He continues to live in Madrid and Leuven, as is the case with many Irish clergy at the time. Like his fellow-Franciscan, Luke Wadding, and Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh, he serves as a key intermediary and his influence in Irish matters is considerable. In 1626, a year after Charles I declared war on Spain, he makes the case for an invasion of Ireland under the joint leadership of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.

Ó Maolconaire dies at the Franciscan friary of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid on November 18, 1629. In 1654, two Irish friars bring his remains back to St. Anthony’s College in Leuven where he is buried near the high altar in the collegiate chapel.


by Leave a comment

The Battle of Dungan’s Hill

battle-of-dungans-hill

The Battle of Dungan’s Hill takes place in County Meath on August 8, 1647. It is fought between the armies of Confederate Ireland and the Parliament of England during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The battle takes place near the modern village of Summerhill and along the present main road between Trim and Kilcock.

By 1647, The Irish Catholic Confederation controls all of Ireland except for Parliamentarian enclaves around Dublin and Cork and a Scottish outpost in Ulster. The previous year they had rejected a treaty with the English Royalists in favour of eliminating the remaining British forces in Ireland.

In August 1647, the Confederate Leinster army under Thomas Preston is attempting to take Dublin from the English Parliamentarian garrison under Michael Jones, when it is intercepted by the Roundheads and forced to give battle. Jones had marched to Trim to relieve the Parliamentarian outpost there at Trim Castle. Preston, who had been shadowing Jones’ movements, attempts to march on Dublin before Jones’ army returns there, but covers only 12 of the 40 miles before being caught at Dungan’s Hill, where the Confederate forces have to form up for battle.

From a Parliamentarian point of view, victory in this battle is presented to them by the incompetence of the Irish commander. Preston is a veteran of the Thirty Years’ War, where he had been a commander of the Spanish garrison at Leuven, but has no experience in open warfare or handling cavalry. Jones, by contrast, had been a cavalry officer in the English Civil War. As a result, Preston tries to move his cavalry along a narrow covered lane where they are trapped and subjected to enemy fire without being able to respond. Even worse, Preston has placed a large number of his troops in wheat fields over seven feet tall. As a result these troops are unable to see the Parliamentarians until it is too late. With the Confederate army spread out and in confusion, Jones’ troops fall in amongst them causing the demoralised Irish cavalry to flee the field, leaving the remainder of Preston’s infantry unsupported.

The Confederate army’s infantry are primarily equipped with pikes and heavy muskets and trained to stand in tercios in the Spanish manner. This means they are difficult to break, but also highly immobile, without cavalry to cover their cumbersome formation when it moves. What is worse, Preston has positioned them in a large walled field, so that when their cavalry has run away, the Parliamentarians can surround and trap them. Some of the Irish infantry, Scottish Highlanders brought to Ireland by Alasdair Mac Colla, manage to charge and break through Jones’ men and escape into a nearby bog, where the English cavalry could not follow. Preston and 2,000 to 3,000 of his regular infantry manage to follow the Highlanders to safety, but the remainder are trapped.

What happens next is disputed. The Irish infantry manages to hold off several assaults on their position, before trying to follow their comrades into the safety of the bog. This makes them lose their formation and the Parliamentarians get in amongst them and then surround them in the bogland. Parliamentarian accounts simply say that the Irish force is then destroyed. Irish accounts, however, claim that the Confederate troops surrender and are then massacred. One account, by a Catholic friar named O Meallain, says that the corpses of the Irish foot soldiers are found with their hands tied. A recent study suggests that the Irishmen probably tried to surrender, but that, according to the conventions of 17th century warfare, this had to be accepted before it entitled them to safety. In this case, it was not accepted and the infantrymen were butchered.

Around 3,000 Confederate troops and a small number of Parliamentarians die at Dungan’s Hill. One of the English regimental commanders, Colonel Anthony Hungerford, is shot in the mouth, a wound that invalids him out of the English Army. Most of the dead are Irish infantrymen killed in the last stage of the battle. Those prisoners who are taken are mainly officers, whom the Parliamentarians can either ransom or exchange for prisoners of their own. Richard Talbot, a junior cavalry officer but later Earl of Tyrconnell and Lord Deputy of Ireland, is among the Confederate prisoners.

In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Owen Roe O’Neill‘s Ulster Army marches through the pass of Portlester Mill to mount an effective rearguard action, routing Jones’ advanced brigade and enabling the survivors of the Leinster army to escape. Jones, fearing O’Neills army, does not continue the pursuit and returns to Dublin. O’Neill and his Ulstermen return four months later to bury the dead Confederates.