The taking of Cahir Castle was not effected without considerable trouble, though it is stated that Essex’s army amounted to 7000 foot and 1300 horse. O’Sullivan states that the siege was prolonged for ten days, in consequence of the Earl of Desmond and Redmond Burke having come to its relief; and the Four Masters state in their Annals that “the efforts of the earl and his army in taking it were fruitless, until they sent for heavy ordnance to Waterford, by which they broke down the nearest side of the fortress, after which the castle had to be surrendered to the Earl of Essex and the queen.” This event occurred on the 30th of May 1599.
As Morrison, however, remarks, the submission of the Lord Cahir, Lord Roche, and others, which followed on this exploit, were only feigned, as subsequent events proved. After the earl’s departure, they either openly joined the rebel party again, or secretly combined with them; and on the 23d of May in the year following, the Castle of Cahir was surprised and taken by the Lord Cahir’s brother, and, as it was said, with his connivance. Of this fact the following account is given by Sir George Carew in his Pacata Hibernia:—
“The president being at Youghall in his journey to Cork, sent Sir John Dowdall (an ancient captain in Ireland) to Cahir Castle, as well to see the same provided of a sufficient ward out of Captain George Blunt’s company, as to take order for the furnishing of them with victuall, munition, and other warlike provision; there he left the eighth or ninth of May, a serjeant, with nine-and-twenty soldiers, and all necessary provision for two months, who notwithstanding, upon the three-and-twentieth of the same, were surprised by James Galdie, alias Butler, brother to the lord of Cahir, and, as it was suspected by many pregnant presumptions, not without the consent and working of the lord himself, which in after-times proved to be true. The careless security of the warders, together with the treachery of an Irishman who was placed sentinel upon the top of the castle, were the causes of this surprise.
“James Galdie had no more in his company than sixty men, and coming to the wall of the bawne of the castle undiscovered, by the help of ladders, and some masons that brake holes in some part of the wall where it was weak, got in and entered the hall before they were perceived. The serjeant, named Thomas Quayle, which had the charge of the castle, made some little resistance, and was wounded. Three of the warde were slaine; the rest upon promise of their lives rendered their armes and were sent to Clonmell. Of this surprise the lord president had notice when he was at Kilmallock, whereupon he sent directions for their imprisonment in Clonmell until he might have leisure to try the delinquents by a marshals’ court. Upon the fourth day following, James Butler, who took the castle, wrote a large letter to the president, to excuse himself of his traitorly act, wherein there were not so many lines as lies, and written by the underhand working of the lord of Cahir his brother, they conceiving it to be the next way to have the castle restored to the baron.”
Cahir Castle was, however, restored to the government in a few months after, as detailed in the following characteristic manner by Sir George Carew:—
“Towards the latter end of this month of August, the lord deputy writing to the president about some other occasions, it pleased him to remember Cahir Castle (which was lost as before you have heard), signifying that he much desired to have that castle recovered from the rebels, the rather because the great ordnance, or cannon, and a culverin being left there by the Earl of Essex, were now possessed by the rebels. This item from the lord deputy spurred on the president without further delay to take order therein, and therefore presently by his letters sent for the lord of Cahir to repair unto him, who (as before you have heard) was vehemently suspected to have some hand both in the taking and keeping thereof. The Baron of Cahir being come, the council persuaded him to deal with James Butler (nicknamed James Galdie) his brother, about the redelivering thereof to her Majesty’s use; but his answer was, that so little interest had he in his brother, as the meanest follower in all his country might prevail more with him than himself (for he was unwilling to have the castle regained by the state, except it might again be left wholly to him, as it was before the first winning thereof); which the president surmising, told him, that if it might speedily be yielded up unto him, he would become an humble suitor to the lord deputy (in his behalf) for the repossessing thereof; otherwise he would presently march with his whole army into those parts, and taking the same by force, he would ruin and rase it to the very foundation, and this he bound with no small protestations. Hereupon Justice Comerford being dispatched away with the lord of Cahir, they prevailed so far with young Butler, that the castle, upon the twenty-ninth following, was delivered to the state, as also all the munitions, and the great ordnance conveyed to Clonmell, and from thence to Waterford.”
Notwithstanding these imputed crimes of the Lord Cahir, and the open treason of his brother, he received the queen’s pardon by patent, dated the 27th day of May 1601, and died in possession of his castle and estates in January 1628. His brother James Galdie, however, lived to take his share in the troubles that followed in 1641, and suffered accordingly.
From these stories of violence and treachery we turn with pleasure to record a fact of a peaceful character, in which Cahir Castle appears as a scene of hospitality and splendid revelry. This occurred in 1626, when the Lord Deputy Falkland, in making a tour of Ireland, after residing a considerable time at the Earl of Ormond’s castle at Carrick-on-Suir, in some time after came to the lord of Cahir, and was entertained by him in his castle with the greatest splendour.
But if these old walls had tongues, they could probably tell us of many scenes of a different character from that we have just narrated, and of which one has been dimly preserved in history. Immediately after the death of Thomas, the fourth Lord Cahir, in 1628, as already stated, his property having passed to his only daughter and heir Margaret, who was married to her kinsman Edmund Butler, the fourth Lord Dunboyne, the latter, while residing in this castle with his wife, slew in it, or murdered, perhaps, would be the more correct word, Mr James Prendergast, the owner of Newcastle, for which he was confined a prisoner in the Castle of Dublin; and his Majesty having granted a commission on the 4th of June in that year, constituting the Lord Aungier high steward of Ireland for the trial of his lordship, he was tried by his peers accordingly, but acquitted, fifteen peers voting him innocent, and one, the celebrated Lord Dockwra, voting him guilty.
During the troubles which followed on the rebellion of 1641, Cahir Castle was taken for the Parliament, by surrender, in the beginning of August 1647 by Lord Inchiquin; and it was again taken in February 1650 by Cromwell himself, the garrison receiving honourable conditions. The reputation which the castle had at this period as a place of strength will appear from the account of its surrender as given in the manuscripts of Mr Cliffe, secretary to General Ireton, published by Borlase. After observing that Cromwell did not deem it prudent to attempt the taking of Clonmel till towards summer, he adds, that he “drew his army before a very considerable castle, called Cahir Castle, not very far from Clonmel, a place then possessed by one Captain Mathews, who was but a little before married to the Lady Cahir, and had in it a considerable number of men to defend it; the general drew his men before it, and for the better terror in the business, brought some cannon with him likewise, there being a great report of the strength of the place, and a story told the general, that the Earl of Essex, in Queen Elizabeth’s time, lay seven or eight weeks before it, and could not take it. He was notwithstanding then resolved to attempt the taking of it, and in order thereunto sent them this thundering summons:—