CHAPTER III
The Geraldine War—Hugh O’Neill and “Red Hugh” O’Donnell
ULSTER was subdued, for a time, but, in Munster, the younger branch of the Geraldines, known as Earls of Desmond, rose against the edicts of Elizabeth and precipitated that long, sanguinary, and dreary conflict known as the Geraldine War. Most of the Irish and Anglo-Irish chiefs of the southern province bore a part in it, and it only terminated after a murderous struggle, stretching over nearly seven years. The Desmonds and their allies gained many successes, but lack of cohesion, as always, produced the inevitable result—final defeat. South Munster became a desert. Elizabeth’s armies systematically destroyed the growing crops, and, at last, famine accomplished for England what the sword could not have done. The Munster Geraldines were mainly led by Sir James Fitzmaurice, a kinsman of the earl, who was a brave man and an accomplished soldier. The earl himself, and his brother, Sir John Fitzgerald, had been summoned to London by the queen, and were made prisoners and placed in the Tower, after the usual treacherous fashion. After a period of detention, they were transferred, as state prisoners, to Dublin Castle, but managed to effect their escape (doubtless by the connivance of friendly officials) on horseback and reached their own country in due time. The earl, foolishly, held aloof from Fitzmaurice until a dangerous crisis was reached, when he threw himself into the struggle and, in defence of his country and religion, lost all he possessed. The Pope and King of Spain, in the Catholic interest, sent men and money, but the Papal contingent, led by an English military adventurer, named Stukley, was diverted from its purpose, and never reached Ireland. The Spanish force—less than a thousand men—was brought to Ireland by Fitzmaurice himself. He had made a pilgrimage to Spain for that purpose. Smerwick Castle, on the Kerry coast, was their point of debarkation. With unaccountable timidity, Earl Desmond made no sign of an alliance, and Fitzmaurice was in search of other succor, when he fell, in a petty encounter with the De Burgos of Castle Connell. The Spaniards, who occupied Smerwick, were besieged by a large Anglo-Irish force, under the Earl of Ormond and other veteran chiefs. They made a gallant and desperate defence, but they were invested by land and sea, and were perfectly helpless against the shower of shot and shell rained upon them night and day by the English batteries. Seeing that further resistance was useless, the Spanish commander finally surrendered at discretion, but, disgraceful to relate, Lord Deputy De Grey refused quarter and the hapless Spaniards were butchered to the last man. It is not pleasant to have to state that among the fierce besiegers were the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, the great English poet Edmund Spenser, and Hugh O’Neill, then serving Elizabeth, “for policy’s sake,” in a subordinate capacity, but afterward destined to be the most formidable of all her Irish foes. The Munster Geraldines were exterminated, except for a few collateral families—the Knight of Kerry, the Knight of Glin, and some other chiefs whose titles still survive. But the great House of Desmond vanished forever from history, when Garret Fitzgerald, the last earl, after all his kinsmen had fallen in the struggle, was betrayed and murdered by a mercenary wretch, named Moriarty, in a peasant’s hut in Kerry, not far from Castle Island. The assassin and his brutal confederates decapitated the remains and sent the poor old head to Elizabeth, in London, who caused it to be spiked over the “traitor’s gate” of the Tower. So ended the Geraldine revolt, which raged in Munster from 1578 to 1584, until all that fair land was a desert and a sepulchre. The bravest battle fought during its continuance was that of Glendalough, in the summer of 1580. This was on the soil of Leinster, and the victory was won by the heroic Clan O’Byrne, of Wicklow, led by the redoubtable chief, Fiach MacHugh. The English, who were led by Lord De Grey in person, suffered a total rout, and the Lord Deputy, at the head of the few terrified survivors, fled in disgrace to Dublin, leaving behind him the dead bodies of four of his bravest and ablest captains—Audley, Cosby, Carew, and Moore.
“Carew and Audley deep had sworn the Irish foe to tame,
But thundering on their dying ear his shout of victory came;
And burns with shame De Grey’s knit brow and throbs with rage his eye,
To see his best, in wildest rout, from Erin’s clansmen fly.”
The defeat and death of “Shane the Proud” had left Ulster, temporarily, without a military chief competent to make head against the English, and, therefore, the Desmonds were left, practically, without help from the northern province. Notwithstanding, the new Lord Deputy, Perrott, kept his eyes fixed steadily on Ulster, the fighting qualities of whose sons he knew only too well. In Tyrconnel young Hugh Roe, or Red Hugh, O’Donnell, was growing fast to manhood, and his fame as an athlete, a hunter, and hater of the English, spread throughout Ireland. Hugh O’Neill, the son of Matthew, Baron of Dungannon, was enjoying himself at Elizabeth’s court, where he made the acquaintance of Cecil, Essex, Bacon, Marshal Bagnal, Mountjoy, and numerous other celebrities, and basked in the sunshine of the royal favor, which he took particular pains to cultivate. He was a handsome young man, of middle size, rigidly trained to arms, and “shaped in proportion fair.” The queen’s object was to make him an instrument in her hands for the final subjugation of Ireland. He seemed to enter readily into her plans, which his quick intellect at once comprehended, and he met her wiles with a dissimulation as profound as her own. If any man ever outwitted Elizabeth, politically, that man was Hugh O’Neill, whom she finally created Earl of Tyrone—a title which, in his inmost heart, he despised, much preferring his hereditary designation of “The O’Neill.” But it was not Hugh’s immediate purpose to quarrel with Elizabeth about titles, or, in fact, anything else. He was graciously permitted to raise a bodyguard of his own clansmen, and to arm and drill them at his pleasure. Nay, more, the queen allowed him to send from England shiploads of lead wherewith to put a new roof on his castle of Dungannon. And he went to Ireland to look after his interests in person. Soon, rumors reached Elizabeth that O’Neill, when he had sufficiently drilled one batch of clansmen, substituted another; and that enough lead had been shipped by him from England to Tyrone to roof twenty castles. It was further rumored that the clanswomen of Tyrone were employed casting bullets at night, instead of spinning and weaving. O’Neill, learning of these rumors from English friends, repaired to London, and, at once, reassured the queen as to his “burning loyalty and devotion to her person.” So he was permitted to return to Dungannon unmolested. Unlike his fierce kinsman, John the Proud, Hugh cultivated the friendship of all the Ulster chiefs, within reach, and more particularly that of the brave and handsome young Red Hugh O’Donnell. Nor did he confine his friendly relations to the chiefs of Ulster. He also perfected good understandings with many in the other three provinces, and managed to keep on good terms with the English also. Indeed, he did not hesitate to take the field occasionally “in the interest of the queen,” and, on one occasion, during a skirmish in Munster, received a wound in the thigh. How could Elizabeth doubt that one who shed his blood for her could be otherwise than devoted to her service? O’Neill, no doubt, liked the queen, but he loved Ireland and liberty much better. In his patriotic deceit he only followed the example set him at the English court. He kept “open house” at Dungannon Castle for all who might choose or chance to call. Among others, he received the wrecked survivors of the Spanish Armada cast away on the wild Ulster coast, and shipped them back to Spain, at his own expense, laden with presents for their king. A kinsman, Hugh of the Fetters—an illegitimate son of John the Proud by the wife of O’Donnell, already mentioned—betrayed his secret to the English Government. He explained his action to the satisfaction of the Lord Deputy, for he had a most persuasive tongue. Having done so, he exercised his hereditary privilege of the chief O’Neill, arrested Hugh of the Fetters, had him tried for treason, and, it is said, executed him with his own hand, because he could find no man in Tyrone willing to kill an O’Neill, even though proven a craven traitor.
Lord Deputy Perrott, in 1587, or thereabout, concocted a plan by which he got the young O’Donnell, whose rising fame he dreaded, into his power. A sailing-vessel, laden with wine and other merchandise, was sent around the coast of Ireland from Dublin and cast anchor in Lough Swilly, at a point opposite to Rathmullen. Red Hugh and his friends, young like himself, were engaged in hunting and fishing when the vessel appeared in the bay. The captain, in the friendliest manner, invited O’Donnell and his companions on board. They consented, and were plied with wine. By the time they were ready to return to shore, they found the hatches battened down and the ship under way for Dublin. And thus, meanly and most treacherously, was the kidnapping of this noble youth and his friends accomplished by, supposedly, an English gentleman.
O’Donnell, after a confinement of three years in Dublin Castle, managed to effect his escape, in company with some fellow captives. But they missed their way, and were overtaken and captured in the territory of O’Tuhill, at a place now called Powerscourt, in the county Wicklow. A second attempt, made two years later on, proved more successful, and the escaping party managed to reach the tribe-land of the O’Byrnes, whose brave chief, Fiach MacHugh, received and sheltered them. Art O’Neill, one of Red Hugh’s companions, perished of cold and hunger—the season being winter—on the trip; and O’Donnell’s feet were so badly frozen that he was partially disabled for life. This fact did not, however, interfere with his warlike activity. O’Byrne at once informed Hugh O’Neill of Red Hugh’s escape and whereabouts, and the Ulster chief sent a guide, who brought him safely to Dungannon, where he was royally entertained and admitted to the knowledge of O’Neill’s secret policy, which, as may have been surmised, aimed at the overthrow of English rule in Ireland.
After resting sufficiently, O’Donnell proceeded to Tyrconnel, where he was joyfully received by his people. His father, old and unenterprising, determined to abdicate the chieftaincy in his favor, and, accordingly, Red Hugh was proclaimed “The O’Donnell,” with all the ancient forms. He proceeded with characteristic rigor to baptize his new honors in the blood of his foes. Old Turlough O’Neill had weakly permitted an English garrison to occupy his castle of Strabane. O’Donnell attacked it furiously and put all of the garrison to the sword. He followed up this warlike blow with many others, and soon struck terror into the hearts of all the “Englishry” and their much more despicable Irish allies, on the borders of Ulster and Connaught. His most active and efficient ally in these stirring operations was Hugh McGuire, Prince of Fermanagh—the best cavalry commander produced by either party during the long and devastating Elizabethan wars.