The Old Irish World

by Alice Stopford Green

May I add that Mr. Dunlop does not appear to follow too closely modern studies on Irish affairs, or he would surely have known of Mr. Justice Madden’s Classical Learning in Ireland, published last summer—a little book which he should certainly have been willing to include in any review of recent Irish writings?

To return, however, to my own lamentable want of candour and accuracy, I now give a few of the instances of my deficiencies, and of the admirable example which Mr. Dunlop sets me in these respects.

Mr. Dunlop states, “to speak accurately,” that my reference to Shane O’Neill as “done to death” (so he expresses it) by the English is “absolutely without foundation.” His own account of Shane’s death in the Dictionary of National Biography tells us that “possibly if he could have kept a civil tongue in his head the MacDonnells might have consented to a reconciliation.” “It is doubtful whether his assassination was premeditated ... it is probable that when heated with wine he may have irritated them by his insolent behaviour beyond endurance.” In the Cambridge Modern History (iii. 592), however, Mr. Dunlop has attained conviction. “In his wine-cups,” he tells us, “he began to brawl, and was literally hacked in pieces by his enemies.” These and some other of his suppositions do not appear to agree with the story in Holinshed, Campion, the Calendar of State Papers, or the Four Masters. But why does Mr. Dunlop disagree with Lord Deputy Sidney, the main mover in the matter? Many efforts, it is well known, had been made to murder Shane. In 1566 Sidney sent to Scotland his “man,” the English-Scot Douglas, who had come to him from Leicester himself. Sidney gives us the clue to his mission. “I pray you,” he wrote to Leicester, “let this bringer (Douglas) receive comfortable words of you. I have found him faithful, it was he that brought the Scots that killed O’Neill.” Douglas repeated the boast and prayed a reward from Cecil. Years later Sidney, being maligned by powerful enemies at Court, reminded the Queen of his old services. “And whereas he [O’Neill] looked for service at their [the Scots] hands against me, for service of me, they killed him.... But when I came to the Court,” he added with indignation, “it was told me it was no war that I had made, nor worthy to be called a war, for that Shane O’Neill was but a beggar, an outlaw, and one of no force, and that the Scots stumbled on him by chance.” Would Mr. Dunlop, as a means of overthrowing me, join with Sidney’s enemies to rob him of the deed he boasted of? (Vide Sid. Let. 12, 34-5; C.S.P. i. 430; Car. ii. 338, 340-1.)

I have pained Mr. Dunlop by referring to the hoard of Con O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, as evidence that Ulster was not penniless. Mr. Dunlop discovers that Shane O’Neill “robbed his father” of this store, and can scarcely believe that I adduce this “robbery” to prove the wealth of Ulster, and that I use it in connection with a passage about plunder of Ireland by English invaders. This hoard occurs in a list of three pages containing signs of riches in Ireland (pp. 67-69), a mere glance at which would show the absurdity of any contention that all the moneys I mention fell into English hands. As to Con O’Neill’s savings, I see no objection to an allusion to them as one proof among others of money and plate in Ulster. I do not know if Mr. Dunlop means not only to suggest my want of candour, but also to prove that if Shane “robbed” his father’s treasure, therefore no English soldiers or officials robbed any Irish chief of his plate or wealth.

But though in this connection I have really nothing to do with the ultimate fate of Con’s hoard, I may in passing compare the Lord Chancellor Cusack’s report at the time with Mr. Dunlop’s “robbery.” Con O’Neill was thrown into prison in Dublin in 1552, and said to be threatened with death. The English were prepared with an illegitimate successor in Tyrone. Shane claimed to be his father’s lawful heir, and fought the English nominee. A garrison of English soldiers was thrown into Armagh. Beyond the Blackwater Ford, within a ride of Armagh, lay the chief fort of Tyrone, on the great hill of Dungannon. Shane, evidently with the support of his people, “came to Dungannon,” and took with him “of the chief’s treasure £800 in gold and silver besides plate and other stuff” [apparently then not the whole of it, but so much as was needed for the war at the moment] “and retaineth the same as yet, whereby it appeareth that he and she [the Earl and Countess] was content with the same; for,” said Cusack, “it could not be perceived that they were greatly offended for the same.” This was how Shane O’Neill “robbed his father.”

Mr. Dunlop quotes a sentence that “Galway ships sailed to Orkney and to Lübeck,” and gives one only of my references in the note, which states that a Scottish ship of Orkney was freighted at Galway for Lisbon. It is evident that by one of the accidental errors of transcription, which every writer that ever lived has sometimes to deplore, I transferred the words, and Orkney was used where I meant to write Lisbon. Lübeck is a different matter. Why did Mr. Dunlop carefully omit the reference in the same note to the page where I mention goods shipped from Galway to Lübeck in 1416? Was it a generous effort to make the error take on a more serious character? Or was it a common inaccuracy? I may inform him that in the Hansisches Urkundenbuch further references occur to Irish cloth at Lübeck, as well as to Irish cloth and provisions along the Elbe, and that the name he throws doubt on appears with good reason in my text.

Mr. Dunlop also discovers a “most apparent and painful” instance of my “distorting of evidence” in my reference (which I did not give as a quotation) to Limerick merchants appeached of treason for trading with Irish rebels, when the deputy’s words were victualling and maintaining (p. 170). Mr. Dunlop might perhaps himself suspect some barter in the business when it attracted eight merchants to traffic in so dangerous an enterprise. But he conveniently omits the rest of my story, that within a year of the arrest of the eight merchants the Limerick corporation prayed to have the city charter confirmed with a special clause that they might buy and sell with Irishmen at all times. They seem to have had no objection to trade with the Irish, which was the only point I had there to prove. I willingly alter the word that seems to Mr. Dunlop so painful a distortion of the truth, and my argument remains unchanged.

Mr. Dunlop twice condemns me in “the case of Enniscorthy fair, where the documents referred to refute the deduction drawn from them.” “We strongly resent her concealing the fact” that Sidney, with the Four Masters, deplored the “destruction (n.b.)” of the fair by the rebellious Butlers at the instigation of James Fitzmaurice. Why should I not “conceal facts” I do not know to be true? I fancy it is better than publishing them. The word used by the Four Masters, Sidney, and a contemporary letter given in Hore’s Town of Wexford (175) is “spoiling.” Will Mr. Dunlop give his references to “destruction (n.b.),” and to “the instigation of James Fitzmaurice”? What is the proof? This day’s raid was not the first attack on the fair after it had been granted to English officers charged to execute martial law on the Wexford Irish. I have not space to tell the significant circumstances. Mr. Dunlop blames me for not giving the founder of the fair. “We will overlook the omission,” he says in his lofty way of superior erudition and fidelity to facts. This cheap taunt is surely absolutely unworthy of a writer who should be aware that no one as yet knows the origin of the fair. I see no reason against mentioning its existence, among many others which Mr. Dunlop neglects, as evidence of trading activity in a region where Irish law and speech prevailed.