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Tag Archives: Siege of Kinsale


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Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, Becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland

Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, English nobleman and soldier, becomes Lord Deputy of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I on January 21, 1600.

Blount is born in 1563, the second son of James, 6th Baron Mountjoy, and Catherine, only daughter of Sir Thomas Legh. He is among the most distinguished of the family, succeeding as 8th Baron Mountjoy on the death in 1594 of his unmarried elder brother William, 7th Baron Mountjoy. The good fortune of his youthful and handsome looks find favour with Queen Elizabeth I which arouses the jealousy of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, leading to a duel between the two courtiers, who later become close friends.

Blount is returned to the House of Commons as MP for St. Ives, Cornwall in 1584 and for Bere Alston in 1586 and 1593, before entering the House of Lords in 1594. Between 1586 and 1598, he spends most of his time on the Continent, serving in the Netherlands and Brittany. He joins Lord Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh in their expedition to the Azores in 1597, along with his distant cousin, Sir Christopher Blount.

The downfall of Lord Essex does not damage Blount’s career. After the failure of his rebellion, Essex shocks many by denouncing his sister Penelope, who is Blount’s mistress, as a traitor, which inevitably raises the question of his own possible involvement. But the Crown, anxious to retain Blount’s services, and also to show as much leniency as possible to the defeated rebels, simply ignore the accusation.

On February 24, 1600, Blount lands in Ireland as Lord Deputy following Lord Essex and in the ensuing years brings the Nine Years’ War to an end. The leader of the rebellion, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, writes about Blount’s “refined manners” that he would lose a whole season of campaigning “while waiting until breakfast is prepared to his mind!” Despite this, Blount proves that he is quite qualified to pursue the war.

In early 1600, Blount dispatches Sir Henry Docwra with an army of 4,200 troops to land at Culmore to erect a fortress commanding the shores of Lough Foyle in the northwest of Ulster. To prevent Hugh O’Neill from sending a strong force to repulse Dowcra’s forces, Blount advances in force from Dublin to Newry causing O’Neill to fear a southern advance into Tyrone.

Blount aims to avoid the mistakes of previous Lords-Deputy. After the Battle of Moyry Pass, he has it cleared, and a garrison is established there. It had long been a problem for English forces advancing into Ulster from the south. He also establishes posts with garrisons at Mountnorris and Armagh.

On July 13, 1601, Blount and his army along with Turlough McHenry O’Neill of the Fews who had recently switched to the English side in the war, have a stand-off with Hugh O’Neill’s forces at the River Blackwater. After a few shots in vain from either side, O’Neill’s forces withdraw, and Blount sends his forces to occupy the ruined Blackwater fort destroyed by O’Neill in 1595. Later O’Neill’s forces attack Blount’s camp before withdrawing. In response, the Lord-Deputy sends his forces across the river where they find strong artificially fortified fords, which would have held out against the English.

By July 15, 1601, the Lord-Deputy has secured the surrender of O’Neill’s ally Hugh Magennis. That month, he has a new fort near the old Blackwater fort erected.

Blount reports to the council in England that O’Neill is determined to prevent his forces from advancing into Tyrone and toward Dungannon. As such, he initiates a policy of burning large quantities of corn to induce a famine to drive the rebels out of their strongholds.

Blount sets about trying to entice Hugh’s forces to come out and attack by fetching some materials for the new fort from the Tyrone side of the river as well as burning more corn. Further skirmishes between Blount and O’Neill’s forces ensue during the summer of 1601.

Spanish forces land in Munster in August 1601, forcing Blount to send his forces southward leaving O’Neill remaining in his unbroken heartland of Tyrone. The Spanish arrival culminates in the Siege of Kinsale that December, which sees a major defeat of the rebels and their allies.

O’Neill during this time has also moved south to assist some of his allies, however, after some serious defeats at the hands of the forces of Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricarde of Connacht, he is in no place to offer any effective resistance once Blount marches once more to Tyrone in the summer of 1602.

Blount advances to the location he found the previous summer at the River Blackwater, which commands safe and secure passage into Tyrone, previously inaccessible, and sets about erecting a new fort. Having observed this, O’Neill burns his capital at Dungannon and flees to his last refuge in Glenconkeyne.

Advancing northward through Tyrone, Blount erects a fort in the townland of Magheralamfield, afterward known as Mountjoy Castle. He also christens the new fort at the Blackwater Charlemont Fort after himself.

Once in Tyrone, Blount carries out a campaign of devastation throughout it resulting in the mass hunting of rebels, spoiling of corn, the burning of houses and the killing of churls so as to force the submission of O’Neill and his remaining allies. Most symbolically, Blount has the inauguration site of the O’Neill’s at Tullyhogue Fort destroyed.

On March 30, 1603, six days after the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James I, O’Neill makes peace with Blount, signing the Treaty of Mellifont. Blount continues in office with the more distinguished title of Lord-Lieutenant. He declares amnesty for the rebels and grants them honourable terms, which causes some severe criticism from England. He shows similar moderation in putting down the abortive risings in Cork, Waterford and Wexford, where the aldermen, apparently with some vague idea of gaining greater toleration for Roman Catholics, refuse to proclaim the new King. In Cork, three insurgents are hanged after a summary trial, but the rest are acquitted or pardoned.

As part of the Plantation of Ulster, the majority of the barony of Loughinsholin is detached from County Tyrone and made part of the newly created County Londonderry. The rest of Loughinsholin along with the northern parts of Dungannon barony are merged to create the short-lived barony of Mountjoy. It is later amalgamated with the barony of Dungannon.

On his return to England, Blount serves as one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s judges in 1603, and in the same year King James I appoints him Master-General of the Ordnance as well as creating him Earl of Devonshire, granting him extensive estates. He is one of the founder members of the Spanish Company re-founded by royal charter in 1605.

Toward the end of Blount’s life, on December 26, 1605, at Wanstead House near London, in a ceremony conducted by his chaplain William Laud, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, he marries his long-time mistress Lady Penelope, formerly wife of Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich (later 1st Earl of Warwick) and sister of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Blount leaves no legitimate children, and so his hereditary titles become extinct at his death on April 3, 1606, at Savoy House, London.


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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)


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Hugh O’Neill’s Army Defeated at the Battle of Kinsale

On December 24, 1601, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his Spanish and Irish allies are defeated by the English at the Battle of Kinsale, one of the most important battles in Irish history. With the able assistance of his main ally, Hugh Roe “Red” O’Donnell, he is fighting to defend Gaelic Ireland against the forces of Elizabeth I of England.

O’Neill, along with O’Donnell, train an army and before long they find a powerful ally, King Phillip III of Spain. King Phillip is more than keen to help the Irish for two reasons. Firstly, he wants revenge for the famous defeat of his Spanish Armada in 1588 and secondly, he sees Ireland as a terrific foundation from which he can invade England.

King Phillip agrees to the request of O’Neill and O’Donnell to send a large army to help them defeat the English. For several years prior they had held the English at bay from the strongholds in Ulster, beating them at Yellow Ford in 1598 and Moyry Pass in 1600. But if they are to ever drive the English back across the Irish Sea, they have to come out from the hills and passes and meet them in open battle. King Phillip eventually sends his army of 4,800 men to Kinsale in County Cork, thirteen miles south of Cork, arriving on September 21, 1601. They are surrounded by the English army, led by Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy, and George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes, the President of Munster.

The landing of the Spanish army is not where O’Neill would have hoped as he and O’Donnell are located in the northern county of Donegal. He had sent a message asking them to land further north, so they might join forces and march against the English, but that message either never arrives or arrives too late. Now O’Neill and O’Donnell face a long march to join with their allies, and the English are much closer to Kinsale than they.

Before the Irish can get there, Mountjoy’s army has laid siege to the Spaniards at Kinsale. To leave their northern strongholds holds many dangers for the Irish chieftains, but leave they do, marching their army 250 miles to Kinsale to put the future of Gaelic Ireland to the test on the battlefield, a march which many say is one of the greatest marches to date in Irish History.

On the morning of December 24, O’Neill moves to attack Mountjoy’s army. There is no coordination between O’Neill’s army and the Spanish in Kinsale, under Don Juan del Águila. The Spaniards make no attempt to attack in force or even create a diversion. O’Neill’s army, especially his cavalry, which perform badly, are not ready to meet the English in this sort of combat. The battle lasts only an hour, with Irish losses of 1,200 soldiers whereas the English lose only twenty. The critical battle of the Nine Years’ War has been lost.

Afterwards, O’Donnell flees to Spain where he lives comfortably until he dies a few months later, said to have been poisoned by a spy of Carew’s named Blake.

Hugh O’ Neill surrenders to the English in 1603 and later returns to Ulster, where Lord Mountjoy treats him respectively well. However, most of his lands and authority are non-existent. In 1607, he goes to Spain with a number of family members and supporters, most of whom are lesser chieftains, and this becomes famously known as the Flight of the Earls. The power of the Gaelic chiefs in Ireland become a thing of the past.


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Birth of Bill Whelan, Musician & Composer of “Riverdance”

Bill Whelan, composer and musician, is born in Limerick, County Limerick, on May 22, 1950. He is best known for composing a piece for the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. The result, Riverdance, is a seven-minute display of traditional Irish dancing that becomes a full-length stage production and spawns a worldwide craze for Irish dancing and Celtic music. It also wins him a Grammy. Riverdance is released as a single in the UK in 1994, credited to “Bill Whelan and Anúna featuring the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.” It reaches number 9 and stays on the charts for 16 weeks. The album of the same title reaches number 31 in the album charts in 1995.

Whelan also composes a symphonic suite version of Riverdance, with its premiere performed by the Ulster Orchestra on BBC Radio 3 in August 2014.

Whelan is educated at Crescent College, University College Dublin and the King’s Inns. While he is best known for his Riverdance composition, he has been involved in many ground-breaking projects in Ireland since the 1970s. As a producer he works with U2 on their War album, Van Morrison, Kate Bush, The Dubliners, Planxty, Andy Irvine & Davy Spillane, Patrick Street, Stockton’s Wing and fellow Limerickman Richard Harris.

As an arranger and composer, Whelan’s credits include:

  • The Spirit of Mayo, performed by an 85-piece orchestra in Dublin‘s National Concert Hall and featuring a powerful Celtic drum corps and a 200 strong choir and choral group Anúna.

In theatre, Whelan receives a Laurence Olivier Awards nomination for his adaption of Gilbert and Sullivan‘s H.M.S. Pinafore. He writes original music for fifteen of W. B. Yeats‘s plays for Dublin’s Abbey Theatre and his film credits include Dancing at Lughnasa (starring Meryl Streep), Some Mother’s Son, Lamb (starring Liam Neeson) and the award-winning At the Cinema Palace.


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City of Londonderry Established by Royal Charter

walls-of-londonderry

A charter incorporates Derry as the city of Londonderry on March 29, 1613 and also creates the new county of Londonderry. Despite the official name, the city is more usually known as simply Derry, which is an anglicisation of the Old Irish Daire, which in modern Irish is spelled Doire, and translates as “oak-grove/oak-wood.” The name derives from the settlement’s earliest references, Daire Calgaich (“oak-grove of Calgach”). The name is changed from Derry in 1613 during the Plantation of Ulster to reflect the establishment of the city by the London guilds.

Ulster is finally brought under the control of Elizabeth I’s government at the beginning of the 17th century following a long struggle between the Tudor monarchy and the Gaelic chieftains. This follows the defeat of the chieftains at the Siege of Kinsale in 1601 after a war lasting nine years. Although the Gaelic chieftains are allowed to remain on their land, their positions have been weakened. A group of them leave Ireland for the continent in 1607, never to return. The “Flight of the Earls”, as it is known, is seen as treason by James I’s government and their lands are confiscated. This important event opens the way for James I to further increase his control over Ulster by settling tens of thousands of settlers from England, Scotland and Wales on the confiscated lands.

Surveying and planning for the plantation take place during 1608 and 1609 and the plantation proper begins in 1610. The towns of Derry and Coleraine, as well as much of the lands that are to become County Londonderry, are granted to the City of London Corporation, which is charged with planting them.

The Society of the Governor and Assistants, London, of the New Plantation in Ulster, within the realm of Ireland, known after the Restoration as the Irish Society, is formed in 1609 by the City of London, to manage the estates which it has been obliged very reluctantly to take on. The Irish Society takes charge of the overall management of the Irish estates, with direct control of the new city of Derry and of the town of Coleraine.

The City of London livery companies are required to take on estates in the surrounding County of Londonderry. The Great Twelve livery companies bear the heaviest financial burden. The county is divided among them into twelve “proportions,” distributed by the drawing of lots. The Great Twelve are in turn supported by a number of minor companies, so that thirty livery companies in all have Irish estates derived from their participation in James I’s scheme for the plantation of Ulster.

However, the first phase of the existence of the Irish Society is short-lived. The Great Parchment Book is compiled in the late 1630s when Charles I claims the estates as forfeit after a politically motivated case in Star Chamber rules that the Londoners have not fulfilled their obligations of plantation.

The City of Londonderry is very much a product of the plantation and plays a pivotal role in safeguarding the plantation. Its walls, which are still intact today, repulse sieges in 1641, 1649 and 1689.

By the end of the 17th century, Ulster, which had been the most Gaelic part of Ireland, has become the most “British.” The plantation creates Ulster we know today with its socio-economic base, its religious and political diversity, and its shared heritage.

The archives of the Irish Society and the City of London livery companies are held by the City of London at London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library respectively.