CHAPTER VII
Ireland Still Victorious—Battles of Tyrrell’s Pass and Drumfluich
THE year 1597 witnessed the recall of Lord Deputy Russell from the government of Ireland, and the substitution of Lord De Burgh. A temporary truce was entered into by the belligerents, and neither side lost any time in augmenting its strength. All Ulster was practically freed from English rule, but they had garrisons shut up in the castles of Carrickfergus, Newry, Dundrum, Carlingford, Greencastle, and Olderfleet—all on the coast. When the truce came to an end, the Palesmen organized a large force and prepared to send it northward, to aid those garrisons, under young Barnewall, son of Lord Trimleston. O’Neill detached a force of 400 men under the brave Captain Richard Tyrrell and his lieutenant, O’Conor, to ambush and destroy it. Tyrrell moved promptly to accomplish his mission, and rapidly penetrated to the present county of Westmeath. There, at a defile now known as Tyrrell’s Pass, not far from Mullingar, he awaited the coming of the Palesmen. In the narrow pass, the latter could not deploy, so that the battle was fought by the heads of columns, which gave the advantage to the Irish. Some of the latter managed to get on the flanks of the Palesmen, and a terrible slaughter ensued. Of the thousand Palesmen, only Barnewall himself and one soldier escaped the swords of the vengeful natives. The former was brought a prisoner to O’Neill, who held him as a hostage, and the soldier carried the dread news of the annihilation of the Meathian force to Mullingar.
But the Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare, with all the force they could muster, were in full march for Ulster. Sir Conyers Clifford, another veteran Englishman, attempted to join them from the side of Connaught, but was met by Red Hugh O’Donnell and compelled to go back the way he came, leaving many of his men behind him. At a place called Drumfluich, the Lord Deputy and Kildare, who were en route to recapture Portmore, which had fallen into the hands of O’Neill, encountered the Irish army. The latter was strongly posted on the banks of the northern Blackwater, but the English attacked with great resolution, drove its vanguard across the river and took possession of Portmore. O’Neill, however, held his main body well in hand, and while De Burgh was congratulating himself on his success, fiercely attacked the English who had crossed to the left bank of the river, and inflicted on them a most disastrous defeat. The Lord Deputy and the Earl of Kildare were both mortally wounded, and died within a few hours. The English army was practically destroyed. Red Hugh O’Donnell had arrived in the nick of time to complete the victory, and, with him, the Antrim MacDonalds, whose prowess received due honor. The historian of Hugh O’Neill says, succinctly: “That battlefield is called Drumfluich. It lies about two miles westward from Blackwater-town (built on the site of Portmore), and Battleford-bridge marks the spot where the English reddened the river in their flight.”
But Captain Williams, a valiant “Saxon,” held Portmore, in spite of O’Neill’s great victory, and this fortress, in the heart of his country, proved a thorn in the side of Tyrone, who, as we have already mentioned, was destitute of battering appliances for many a day. The result at Drumfluich struck dismay into the hearts of the stoutest soldiers of the English interest, and the dreaded names of O’Neill and the Blackwater were on every trembling lip throughout the Pale. The queen, in London, grew very angry, and rated her ministers with unusual vehemence. It was fortunate for De Burgh and Lord Kildare that they died on the field of honor. Otherwise, they would have been disgraced, as was General Norreys for his defeat at Clontibret. He died of a broken heart soon after being deprived of his command in Ulster.
The English were also unfortunate in Connaught and Munster, and when the Earl of Ormond assumed the government of Ireland, by appointment, after the defeat and death of De Burgh, the English interest had fallen lower in the scale than it had been since the days of Richard II. The earl entered into a two months’ armistice with O’Neill, and negotiations for a permanent peace were begun. O’Neill’s conditions were: perfect freedom of religion not only in Ulster but throughout Ireland; reparation for the spoil and ravage done upon the Irish country by the garrisons of Newry and other places, and, finally, entire and undisturbed control by the Irish chiefs over their own territories and people. (Moryson, McGeoghegan, and Mitchel.)
Queen Elizabeth was enraged at these terms, when transmitted to her by Ormond, and sent a list of counter-terms which O’Neill could not possibly entertain. He saw there was nothing for it but the edge of the sword, and grew impatient at the tardiness of King Philip of Spain in not sending him aid while he was prosecuting the war for civil and religious liberty so powerfully. The English Government, in order to discourage the Catholic powers and keep them from coming to the aid of Ireland, concealed or minimized O’Neill’s splendid victories. Lombard, cited by McGeoghegan—a most conscientious historian—avers that an English agent was employed, at Brussels, “to publish pretended submissions, treaties, and pardons, so that the Spanish governor of Flanders might report to his master that the power of the Irish Catholics was broken and their cause completely lost.” (Mitchel.) The same charge has been made against England in our own day—only in a different connection. Germany, France, and Russia have semi-officially declared that English agents at Berlin, Paris, and St. Petersburg have persistently misrepresented the attitude of those countries toward America during the recent Spanish War. Whatever may have been the truth regarding the Brussels agent, it is undeniable that King Philip abandoned Ireland to her fate until it was too late to hinder her ruin; and that, when Spanish troops landed at Kinsale, in 1601, they proved more of a hindrance than a help. O’Neill gave up all hope of assistance from Philip in the fall of 1597 and resolved to stake all on his genius as a commander, and on the tried valor of the glorious clansmen of Tyrone and Tyrconnel.