The wild wail of women, with the lowing of kine.
The raid is accomplished—the war waves roll back,
Smoke, ember, and bloodprints are left on the track,
And long the scared mother, her infant will tame,
With the terrors attached to the Thierna-Dubhs' name."
—Three verses of twenty published in the Kerry Magazine, a publication under the control of a Protestant minister.
Spenser the poet described the people "as emerging like ghouls to feed on corpse, carrion and grass." "All such people as they met they did without mercie putte to the sworde. By this means the whole countrie having no cattel nor kine left they were driven to such extremities for want of vittels they were either to die or perish in the famine or to die under the sword."—The Black Earl's Raid on Corkaguiny in 1580 in Hooker's Chronicle A. D. 1580.
(The Burning of Dingle, Lord Gray Slaughter at Fort-del-Ore and the torture of Kerry martyrs and other subjects are lost in the Dublin fire.)
Before the Fitzmaurices arrived in Dingle, or Fort-del-Ore, three persons landed in Dingle off Spanish ships. They were seized by government spies, and first taken before the Earl of Desmond. The vain creature ordered them to be taken before the authorities in Limerick. Two persons turned out to be Dr. Patrick O'Haly, Bishop of Mayo, and Father Cornelous O'Rourke. To extract a confession the English had them tortured. When this failed they were hanged to a tree and used as targets by the soldiers. Desmond, in his pretentions of loyalty, took credit for this act.
The reader is referred to the following Protestant authorities: Hooker's Chronicle, 1590, Smith's History of Kerry, Pelham's Letters and the State Papers from 1579 to 1585.