Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone Irish Biography

Hugh Dubh O’Neill, 5th Earl of Tyrone (“Black Hugh”, meaning “black-haired” or “dark tempered”) (1611–1660) was an Irish soldier of the 17th century. He is best known for his participation in the Irish Confederate Wars and in particular his defence of Clonmel in 1650. The great O’Neill would surely have demurred with the annalist considering his demise in Rome to have been a token of God’s pleasure, but the presence of the exiles’ graves in the church of S.

Burgh mounted a large offensive into Ulster, but he died of an Irish ague at Newry on his return from revictualling the new fort he had built on the Blackwater. When the ceasefire eventually broke down, O’Neill by turns threatened to storm or starve out the Blackwater fort. By the time Marshal Bagenal was selected to lead an army to revictual the fort, O’Neill had the ground prepared with a series of ditches constructed as obstacles along the line of march. The traverse of these obstacles and the continuous pressure from skirmishers on right and left caused the English companies to lose contact. The vanguard was overthrown and Bagenal killed and the main battle thrown into disorder by a gunpowder explosion.

By the summer of 1601 he had retaken most of the principle castles in Munster and scattered the rebel forces. But despite their separatist and religious rhetoric, O’Neill and his allies were still traditional Gaelic lords and their objectives were the same as ever; to keep their own personal power and that of their clans intact. Many of them had concluded that the only way to do this was to get rid of the English. For Hugh however, not to stand up to the English encroachment onto hugh oneal Tir Eoin would probably have been more costly than going along with it. If he had not defended his territory, as The O’Neill was required to do, another of his derbh fhine could have won the support of the O’Neill swordsmen and ousted and killed him. By the early 1590’s, northern Connacht and the southern rim of Ulster was engulfed by Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam’s “reforming” agents who applied the “composition” formula that had been hammered out in Munster and southern Connacht.

Hugh O’Neill, unable to take walled towns, made repeated overtures to the Palesmen to join his rebellion, appealing to their Catholicism and to their alienation from the Lord Deputies and the New English. For the most part, however, the Gaill remained hostile to their hereditary enemies. The importance of O’Neill’s proclamations lay in their idea that Ireland should become a state to which its own elite would pledge their first loyalty. The longer the war went on, the more radical the rebels became and the more it became a self-declared Holy war. This traditionally loyalist community generally maintained their political loyalty to the English Crown, despite their discontent. Their loyalty however was shaky and was put under severe pressure during the course of the war.

By initially cooperating with the government of Queen Elizabeth I, he established his base of power, and in 1593 he replaced Turlough Luineach O’Neill as chieftain of the O’Neills. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. But his dominance in Ulster led to a deterioration in his relations with the crown, and skirmishes between Tyrone’s forces and the English in 1595 were followed by three years of fruitless negotiations between the two sides. He put together the highly effective army of Ulster, yet his tactics always had to be defensive because he did not have the resources to wage open, offensive, or siege warfare. This may have led to a lack of confidence, which translated into the fateful retreats from difficult but nevertheless winnable positions at the battles of Moyry Pass and Kinsale.

Anradhán kindred of Scotland/Scottish and Irish Clans related to Uí Neill dynasty

Accompanied by Rory O Donnell, brother of Red Hugh, O’Neill presented himself to the new king James I. The Irish were received graciously and O’ Neill was confirmed in his title and estates. In 1593 Turlough stood down as the chief of the clan thereby allowing Hugh to be invested with the title The Ó Neill. The ceremony was performed in the traditional way and on the sacred stone at Tullaghogue in 1595 witnessed by all the major Ulster clans. Born in 1550 Hugh O’Neill (Aodh Mór Ó Neill) was the second son of Mathew Ceallaigh the illegitimate son of Conn Bacach O’Neill who had submitted to Henry VIII in 1542 and was re-granted his lands with the English title 1st Earl of Tyrone.

He married his second wife, Mary Doughty Vanderdonck, about 1662 and received a land warrant for 400 acres in 1667 for transporting them to Maryland. The parliament of Ireland outlawed O’ Neill in 1613 and he later died in Rome on 20 July 1616 leaving behind a large number of legitimate and illegitimate children. In 1601 Mountjoy was able to capture the Spanish army sent to help O’Neill at the town of Kinsale. Though it numbered 17,000 men led by Robert Devereux the Earl of Essex, it was to prove ineffectual and in 1599 Essex made a treaty with O’ Neill which was not to Elizabeth’ liking and she replaced Devereux with Lord Mountjoy.

The northern garrisons were in a continual state of blockade; interminable letter writing was carried on between the parties without definite result; and the negotiations were interspersed with occasional fighting, and an abortive raid into Ulster. O’Donnell complained of invasions of his father’s territory, and of an opposing O’Donnell being set up, and of his and Owen O’Toole’s long imprisonment. On Sir Turlough O’Neill’s death in 1595, he assumed the title of The O’Neill, in addition to that of Earl of Tyrone. This check did not prevent their soon afterwards relieving the English garrison in Monaghan. This position as head of the O’Neill family made him formidable in the eyes of Elizabeth’s advisers. Day by day he brought the surrounding clans more and more under his influence.

The Proud History of the O’Neill Clan

As late as 1615 he declared that rather than live in Rome, he would prefer to return to his land with 100 soldiers and die there in defence of the Catholic faith and fatherland. There was no way Philip III would allow O’Neill to travel either to Spain or to Flanders. Keeping the exiled prince in Rome was a useful trump card to have in reserve should war break out again between England and Spain, but until that should happen, Philip would do nothing to offend the court of St James. To make matters worse, the Irish found it difficult to cope with the insalubrious Roman climate, and both the Earl of Tyrconnell and O’Neill’s son Hugh were fatally stricken, dying in 1608 and 1609 respectively.

Hugh O’Donnell had left for Spain to try for more help but died there suddenly. Recognising that his cause had failed O’Neill sought a pardon and 1603 Elizabeth ordered Mountjoy to open negotiation with all the chiefs involved in the rebellion. Mathew Ceallaigh had been murdered by his half-brother Shane the Proud O’Neill who also drove elderly Conn out of Tyrone and into the Pale in 1559 where he died not long after. Mathew had two sons, Brian, recognised by the crown as the next earl, and his younger brother Hugh. Hugh O’Neill (born c. 1605, Spanish Netherlands—died c. 1660, Spain?) was an Irish general, nephew of the celebrated Owen Roe O’Neill. He was a major Irish commander against the English parliamentary forces of Oliver Cromwell.

However, after Mountjoy, with whom O’Neill had a good relationship, resigned as Lord Deputy, he was replaced by Arthur Chichester, who had a much less conciliatory attitude. Chichester harassed O’Neill, forced him to attend Protestant services, accused him of treasonable plotting with Spain, and may even have been trying to assassinate him (O’Neill certainly believed that he was). The Old English towns of Munster, including Waterford, https://chat.openai.com/ Cork and Limerick rebelled, expelling Protestant ministers, imprisoning English officials, seizing the municipal arsenals and demanding freedom of worship for Catholics. They refused to admit Mountjoy’s army when he marched south, citing their ancient charters from 12th century. Mountjoy retorted that he would, “cut King John his charter with King James his sword” and arrested the ringleaders, thus ending the revolt.

The Bagenal marriage

It proceeded to draw up a proclamation against the earl, dredging up the old claims about his father’s parentage and insisting that the earl was the procurer of a province-wide revolt against the crown. By the time the proclamations were read out in Irish and English, the earl had already been in open action at Clontibret, where he had harried to near calamity a supply column which Marshal Bagenal led to and from the besieged garrison at Monaghan. The English army, leavened with reinforcements brought back from campaigning in Brittany, was astounded at the ability of the confederate army. Many of these Irishmen had been trained in the composition bands, and more were now being trained by veterans returned from Spanish regiments. These veterans taught the effective use of guns and improvised in the Irish landscape the defensive entrenching methods learned in the war in the Netherlands.

In September 1607 Tyrone, with Rory O’Donnell, earl of Tyrconnell, and about 100 northern chieftains, secretly embarked on a ship bound for Spain. From there the refugees made their way to Rome, where they were acclaimed by Pope Paul V. This so-called “flight of the earls” signaled the end of Gaelic Ulster; thereafter the province was rapidly Anglicized. The irony of Hugh O’Neill’s early life is that it looked as if his career would be tied to success of English government in Ireland.

The significance of the red hand on the O’Neill family coat of arms is often debated, and there are many interpretations as to what it signifies. The most prominent myth recounts that two Mileasan chiefs wished to settle a land dispute with a boating contest. The first man to touch the shore with his right hand would be the winner and rightful king. The chief who was about to lose, cut off his right hand and threw it to the shore before his opponent could touch it. In 1600 Spain made a decisive commitment to the Irish struggle, and O’Neill sent over his second son Henry as a hostage. But O’Neill and his allies were already on the defensive in Ulster when in the following year a relatively small Spanish expeditionary force landed at Kinsale in the extreme south of the country.

He completed his success with a visit to court in 1587, where he charmed the queen and acquired letters patent to the lordship of Tyrone. A subsequent land commission included O’Cahan’s country and the Fews within the earl’s patent. In spite of representations from Perrot and Bagenal, all Turlough received was the captaincy of Tyrone for life. Perrot was furious at the result and an attempt was now made to contain the new earl’s power. One commentator reckoned that the crown had paid £20,000 to put him in power. However, the subsidy paid to him to maintain his horse-band was now switched to Turlough to enable him to pay his composition forces.

By the 1590s, the Fitzgerald magnates of Munster had been smashed in the Desmond Rebellions. South Leinster was extensively garrisoned by English troops and in the west ruthless commanders named Drury and Malby enforced a pacification settlement known as ‘composition’ on the local lords. In the early part of the 16th century the English Tudor monarchs had embarked on a project to bring all of Ireland for the first time under the control on their Crown. The O’Neill lineage claims descent from Niall Glúndub, a 10th-century king of Ailech as well as High King of Ireland. Niall was descended from the Cenél nEógain branch of the Northern Uí Néill.

The English, fearing also for the life of the young Hugh removed him to the safety of London. We discussed Scottie Scheffler’s Tiger-like excellence last week, but ball-striking — Scheffler’s superpower — will be at a premium this week. He has written and recorded eight albums, the latest ‘The One’ by Hugh O’Neill & Taliya Hafiz is on this website to listen to, also on Spotify and all major platforms. Hughie told me he didn’t have no relations left—except his wife and kids, of course. A guy gets careless and gabs about things he knows and when he comes to he’s liable to find there’s guys who’d feel easier if he wasn’t around no more.

He obtained a new patent which, with a few exceptions, was nearly as extensive as his original 1587 one; and, having the audacity to ask for the lord presidency of Ulster, was conceded the lieutenancy of Armagh and Tyrone. In March 1583 Turlough’s death was reported and Hugh O’Neill marched on the inaugural stone at Tullaghogue to assume the prohibited title of ‘O’Neill’. This proved abortive because news came through that Turlough had recovered from a drink-induced coma lasting twenty-four hours. The state in Dublin – exhausted in the wake of the southern war and fearful of the turbulence which a MacShane succession might have engendered – had been inclined to acquiesce in Hugh’s claim as the lesser of two evils. In the aftermath of this revealing episode, Hugh demanded control of the Blackwater fort and letters patents not only for Tyrone but also the Lagan valley.

The Rev. C. P. Meehan’s Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell contains minute particulars of the lives of Hugh O’Neill, his family, and friends, from his submission at Mellifont to his death. In France they were warmly received by Henry IV., but, upon the representations of the English ambassador, were obliged to pass on to Rome, where they arrived in May 1608. For some days before this submission the Deputy was aware of Elizabeth’s death; when the news was communicated to O’Neill he burst into tears, rightly judging that he might have made even better terms had he known of it before his submission.

In January 1596 an armistice was arranged between the Government and O’Neill, who was requested to set forth his offers and demands. If these should be acceptable to her Majesty, the Council assured him of her gracious pardon for his life, lands, and goods, and the same for his confederates. In June 1593 Sir Turlough abandoned the contest with Hugh O’Neill, and upon being secured certain lands, and an income for life, agreed that the Earl should stand undisputed master of Tyrone.

Indeed, the first English reaction to O’Neills rebellion was to march on Wicklow to try and secure the Pale from Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne, who was once again attacking English garrisons and settlements. Equally importantly, O’Neill had learnt the military lessons of the Desmond rebellion. It was not enough to do as Shane O’Neill or the Fitzgeralds had done and use guerrilla tactics, thus exposing your own countryside to destruction as Munster had been during the Desmond rebellions. He was anything but a consistent fighter for the Gaels or for Catholicism, in fact he had attended Protestant services up to 1594.

• As a result, in the summer of 1602 Mountjoy was finally able to breach the Blackwater barrier into the heart of Tyrone, join up with Docwra, take Dungannon, destroy the O’Neill inaugural stone at Tullaghogue, and waste the country.
• Neither O’Neill nor O’Donnell wanted to fight, but their reputations were at stake and they eventually agreed to a Spanish plan for an advance towards the English front line.
• To win out in internal succession disputes within the O’Neill lordship, Hugh made himself into a powerful warlord and made important alliances with neighbouring lords.
• Adriaen, who was a lawyer, had met 18 year old Mary’s father, the Reverend Francis Doughty, in court the previous month.
• Soon after O’Neill had the audacity to visit the new lord deputy, Sir William Russell (qv), in Dublin and gave a bravura performance which saw him return home in triumph.

The lords justices wondered about the future disposition of this ambitious loyalist, since once in charge of Tyrone he would be ‘the greatest subject of form that has been in this realm of long time . Able to command all Ulster even to the town of Dundalk’ (PRO, SP 63/102, no. 71). Further evidence was available in the spring of the following year when Hugh O’Neill, together with other Ulster lords, was at Strabane with his old adversary Turlough Luineach O’Neill ‘solemnizing their new Easter of the pope his appointing’ (PRO, SP 63/108, no. 56). Dublin was alarmed at this diplomatic activity, which saw not only the baron of Dungannon sinking his differences with the ageing O’Neill in order to get recognition as tánaiste but also the leading men of Ulster making in effect a joint religious declaration.

O’Neill, Hugh

In 1591, Fitzwilliam broke up the MacMahon lordship in Monaghan when the Lord (another Hugh) resisted the imposition of an English Sheriff. Hugh MacMahon was hanged and his lordship divided eight ways between his fine. War was triggered when it was mooted that Ulster would be governed by a provincial president – probably Henry Bagenel, an English colonist, English garrisons introduced and the existing Gaelic lordships broken up. In December 1591, after a number of failed attempts, O’Neill engineered O’Donnell’s escape (probably through bribery at high levels in Dublin) to the Wicklow mountains. There he found shelter with the Gabhal Raghnail O’Byrnes, whose chief, Fiach MacHugh, was among O’Neills web of allies.

Holding out for two further years, O’Neill eventually submitted to Lord Deputy Mountjoy in March 1603. Restored to his earldom, and repudiating his Gaelic title, O’Neill received extremely generous terms from the war-weary crown authorities. Some, however, continued to harass him, rendering his situation almost unbearable. On 14 September 1607 O’Neill, accompanied by the Earl of Tyrconnell and 99 followers, set sail for the continent, an event that has gone down in history as the Flight of the Earls, though some recent commentators prefer to consider it a strategic retreat. O’Neill’s countermeasures included murdering rival O’Neills, bribing Crown officials, liberating Red Hugh from prison in Dublin, and opening up channels of communication with Spain. Less successfully, he eloped with Mabel Bagenal, which embittered relations with her ambitious family.

The Tyrone infantry that had fought the war so valiantly, steadily, and successfully had been destroyed in an hour. As a result, in the summer of 1602 Mountjoy was finally able to breach the Blackwater barrier into the heart of Tyrone, join up with Docwra, take Dungannon, destroy the O’Neill inaugural stone Chat GPT at Tullaghogue, and waste the country. Later, in flight from Ulster, O’Neill and Ruaidhrí O’Donnell (qv) claimed that Mountjoy’s campaign was the cause of ‘so much misery that our people were eating human flesh and up to forty thousand of them died of sheer hunger’ (Walsh, Destruction by peace, 190).

There was now no let-up in the war as the new lord deputy began the clearance of Leinster. In the autumn of 1600, after a month of intermittent fighting in the Moyry pass which had successfully prevented Mountjoy’s army advancing into Ulster, O’Neill made an inexplicable withdrawal from his trenches. As a result Mountjoy was able to establish a new forward garrison at Armagh. This lord deputy, however, did not intend long lines of supply to isolated garrisons but rather more numerous garrisons, which closer together supported each other and operated to waste the surrounding countryside. Meanwhile O’Neill built forts of his own on the Tyrone side of Lough Neagh in an attempt to prevent devastating raids from a fleet of boats which Sir Arthur Chichester (qv) had built. In 1642, his uncle, Owen Roe O’Neill, organised the return of 300 Irish officers in the Spanish service to Ireland to support the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

• Spanish agents arrived in the northwest county of Donegal in 1596 where O’Neill and O’Donnell had requested a Spanish army to aid their struggle.
• In 1607 he decided to take this to the King but was warned secretly that he was to be arrested.
• Deserted by his allies and with Ulster reduced to starvation, O’Neill surrendered to Lord Deputy Mountjoy at Mellifont in March 1603.
• After all, they were returned their lands and given responsible positions in the new order.

O’Donnell immediately sailed for Spain in the hope of procuring additional assistance, and O’Neill returned with his followers to Tyrone. The guides missed their course, and when they reached the entrenchments at dawn of day they found the English army under arms, the cavalry mounted and in advance, and all ready to receive them. Hugh O’Neill allowed three months to elapse before he appeared at Belgoley, a hill north of Kinsale, a mile from the Anglo-Irish camp. Reinforcements were hastened from England, and before long there were 11,800 foot and 857 horse before the town. On the 23rd September 1601 a Spanish fleet, conveying 4,000 men and a quantity of arms and stores, under Don Juan d’Aguila, entered Kinsale harbour.

The first to adopt the patronymic surname was Niall Glúndub’s great-grandson, Flaithbertach Ua Néill. In 1659 he, and others, petitioned the court for payment “for trouble & paynes wee tooke in taking Mr Hutts Vessell.” He was paid 20 pounds of tobacco a day for eight days work. The Earls and their families made their way overland to Rome where they were welcomed in 1606 by the pope. King James saw this flight as treasonous and O’ Neill was declared an outlaw in 1613 by the Irish parliament.

Unfortunately, Art froze to death during the escape in the winter of 1591 and the others were led to safety by Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne. He aided the English during 1580 in the suppression of the second Desmond rebellion and supported Sir John Perrot in his campaign against the Antrim MacDonnells in 1584. For this, he was rewarded by Elizabeth I when in 1587 he was granted a patent to his grandfather’s Tyrone properties which were now controlled by his cousin Turlough Luineach who styled himself The Ó Neill. Hugh O’Neill, 2nd earl of Tyrone (born c. 1550—died July 20, 1616, Rome, Papal States [Italy]) was an Irish rebel who, from 1595 to 1603, led an unsuccessful Roman Catholic uprising against English rule in Ireland. The defeat of O’Neill and the conquest of his province of Ulster was the final step in the subjugation of Ireland by the English.

The “Ark” and the “Dove” were the first two boats to come to the Maryland colony in 1634, but I did not see the O’Neal name listed on the reconstructed ships’ manifests. The early settlers to Maryland were a mixture of both Roman Catholics and Puritans, and if memory serves me correctly, Lord Baltimore – the founder – was a Roman Catholic who was raised to the “Irish Peerage” by King James. In the early morning of 31 July 1972, the British army initiated Operation Motorman in response to Bloody Friday, a series of bombs that… In 1985, the British and Irish governments signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, a landmark accord aimed at addressing the political conflict… Even his gallowglasses laid down their great axes in favour of the arquebus. O’Neill then defeated English armies led by Bagenal at Clontibret in 1595 and at the Battle of The Yellow Ford in 1598 where Bagenal was killed.

In the meantime O’Neill quietly built up his power base and trained his own army, sometimes working hand in hand with the crown, sometimes against it. His double game is best exemplified by the fact that he both slaughtered the crew of La Trinidad Valencera at the time of the Spanish Armada and gave succour to other survivors who were shipwrecked off the north-western coast of Ireland. He became a General in the Spanish army and won distinctions during the Peninsular War fighting the French. He married Manuela de Castilla Quevedo, the daughter of a Spanish noble family, in 1819.

In the early years of the war, he wanted a modest, negotiated settlement with the English. But by assuming the role of a Gaelic and Catholic crusader against the English Protestants, he was able to rally disaffected chiefs and lords throughout Ireland to his rebellion. Similar solutions were applied in Longford and Breifne (Cavan) to the O’Rourke and O’Reilly lords respectively. Firstly, the introduction of a sheriff would end his control over Tir Eoin that he had spent the better part of two decades fighting for. Secondly, it would reduce his property strictly to his own demesne, when he was trying to extend it to the land held by his fine.

Hugh Dubh was subsequently released into Spanish custody on condition that he would not serve in campaigns against English forces. He did not, therefore, return to Flanders, but was posted to Spain, where he became a General of Artillery, helping to suppress a rebellion (known as the Reaper’s War) in Catalonia. He became the Spanish recognised 5th Earl of Tyrone upon the death of his first cousin, Hugh Eoghan. In around 1660, after the English Restoration, Hugh Dubh wrote to Charles II and asked for his family’s ancestral lands to be restored, and that he be made the English Earl of Tyrone. However, Charles did not grant the request and Hugh Dubh died of disease later that year. Granted the earldom in 1587, Hugh had to wait until 1595 to be inaugurated in the Gaelic style as the O’Neill, a title prohibited by the crown.

In 1595, Sir John Norris was ordered to Ireland at the head of a considerable force for the purpose of subduing him, but O’Neill succeeded in taking the Blackwater Fort before Norris could prepare his forces. O’Neill was instantly proclaimed a traitor at Dundalk.[4] The war that followed is known as the Nine Years’ War. When Capt. Humphrey Willis was sent into Maguire’s country as sheriff of Fermanagh in Easter 1593 and the survival of yet another Gaelic lordship was put in the balance, the die was finally cast. O’Neill sent his brother, Cormac MacBaron, and his foster-brothers to assist Maguire against Willis.

A sortie into the Wicklow mountains was mauled by Phelim MacFiach O’Byrne, as was a force crossing the Curlew mountains in Sligo by O’Donnell. In 1646 O’Neill was made a major general of the forces commanded by Owen Roe. After the death of the latter (1649), he successfully defended Clonmel in 1650 against Cromwell for over a week before contriving to escape. In the following year he led his troops in defense of Limerick throughout the four-month siege by the forces commanded by Henry Ireton. So stubborn was his resistance that he was excepted from the benefit of the general capitulation accorded to the defenders, and, after being condemned to death and then reprieved, he was sent as a prisoner to the Tower of London. Released in 1652 on the representation of the Spanish ambassador that O’Neill was a Spanish subject, he repaired to Spain, whence in 1660 he wrote to Charles II, who had recently become king, claiming the earldom of Tyrone.

His father, who was held both the Irish title of O’Neill and the English one of ‘Earl of Tyrone’ was killed and his sons banished from Ulster as a child by his rival Shane O’Neill. In default of an Old English change of heart, Spanish intervention was the key to winning the war in Ireland, and O’Neill committed himself further to that alliance when he sent his second son, Henry, as a hostage to Spain in April 1600. However, O’Neill’s nemesis had finally arrived in Ireland in the shape of Charles Blount (qv), Lord Mountjoy.

In Wicklow, Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne’s long career of raiding was finally brought to a close  when his mountain stronghold at Ballinacor, Glenmalure, was burned and his territory garrisoned. However, his son Phelim Mac Fiach carried on guerrilla attacks from the mountains of south Wicklow. In 1592, Red Hugh drove a Captain Willis (Sheriff of Tir Connell) out of Tir Connell – he having been more of a freebooter than a lawman in any case. In 1593, Maguire and O’Donnell combined to resist Willis’ introduction as Sheriff into Maguire’s Fermanagh and began attacking the English outposts along the southern edge of Ulster.

From this time O’Neill perfected a system of conscription that included the richest noble to the poorest peasant. This new force was known as bonnachts and he had them trained in modern warfare. Hugh was reared from the age of 9 as an English noble in London until 1567 he was returned to Ireland and placed in the safekeeping of the Lord Deputy of Ireland Sir Henry Sidney. Shane the Proud had by now, in the tradition of his Gaelic ancestors, resumed the Celtic title The Ó Neill and is suspected of having Brian O’Neill murdered close to Newry whilst he was en route to London to assume the title of Earl.

His victory (August 14) over the English in the Battle of the Yellow Ford on the River Blackwater, Ulster—the most serious defeat sustained by the English in the Irish wars—sparked a general revolt throughout the country. Pope Clement VIII lent moral support to Tyrone’s cause, and, in September 1601, 4,000 Spanish troops arrived at Kinsale, Munster, to assist the insurrection. But those reinforcements were quickly surrounded at Kinsale, and Tyrone suffered a staggering defeat (December 1601) while attempting to break the siege. He continued to resist until forced to surrender on March 30, 1603, six days after the death of Queen Elizabeth.

In support of Roman Catholicism and the importance of mystical experience, he wrote The Mystical Element of Religion As Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her Friends (1908). However Henry IV of France welcomed the fugitives, firmly refusing requests from London to have them arrested, but deftly guiding them to the Spanish Netherlands rather than to Spain. Warmly received by the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, the Irish party wintered in the Leuven area where the newly-founded Irish Franciscan college was situated.

Hugh’s presence was intended to keep Turlough confined north of the River Blackwater and was part of Sidney’s plan to break up the O’Neill lordship. It was doubtless these ‘particular and peculiar followers’ of his own who, Sidney says, ‘much repined that the great and regal estate of the O’Neill (as they deemed it) should be so broken and dismembered’ (UJA, iii (1855), 93). Sidney paid Dungannon’s expenses at the 1569 parliament and arranged a subsidy for him to fit out a detachment of cavalry.

An O’Byrne search party found the fugitives near death and covered with snow near Glendalough. To win out in internal succession disputes within the O’Neill lordship, Hugh made himself into a powerful warlord and made important alliances with neighbouring lords. Like several other Gaelic noblemen of his generation, he had been brought up as an English gentleman and was supposed to bring “civility” with him into Ulster. Certainly, Hugh was capable of operating in the world of the English aristocrat. He attended parliament in Dublin and Court in London and cultivated powerful allies there, both Irish and English, such as the Earls of Ormonde and Leicester.

O’Neill was a member of the O’Neill dynasty, the leaders of which left Ireland in the flight of the Earls in 1607. Hugh Dubh’s father, Art Óg O’Neill, was among those exiles who made careers for themselves in the Spanish Army of Flanders. It’s no wonder then that the Ui Neill dynasty that descended from Niall split into two septs, northern and southern, at the beginning of the fifth century. Today the existing line is officially attributed to Nial Gluin Dubh ( ), “Niall of the Black Knee,” another warrior king who managed to bring the two septs together under his power and whose grandson Domhnall adopted the surname we recognize today. The Irish forces were defeated and Hugh O’Neill and Red Hugh O’Donnell were forced to leave Ireland, in what is now known as the “Flight of the Earls,” in 1607. The departure of those two Irish chieftains for Europe effectively ended the Gaelic order in Ireland.

This report is typical of English tactics all over the country, which deliberately targeted the civilian population. This attrition quickly began to bite, and particularly so after Chichester began launching raids across Lough Neagh into the heart of Tir Eoin. It also meant that the Ulster chiefs were tied down in Ulster to defend their own territories.

Nevertheless Hugh O’Neill was now forced to travel to London to exculpate himself. There he was placed under house arrest but released after letters from Fitzwilliam and the Irish council commending him as a source of stability in the north. Hugh was further embarrassed at court by the arrival of Conn MacShane with a welter of allegations against him, but he was eventually allowed to leave, having agreed to forego the title of ‘O’Neill’ and to accept the reform of his territories. Although born into the powerful O’Neill family of Ulster, Hugh was fostered as a ward of the crown in County Dublin after the assassination of his father, Matthew, in 1558. His wardship ended in 1567, and, after a visit to the court in London, he returned to Ireland in 1568 and assumed his grandfather’s title of earl of Tyrone.

In the wake of Mountjoy’s redeployment of troops from the Ulster borders to besiege the Spaniards, O’Neill was able to ravage the northern Pale and to collect a large army. He could be blamed for the slowness of his departure, but his successful rendezvous with O’Donnell in Cork in December 1601 put Mountjoy in a trap between the Irish camp and the Spaniards in Kinsale. This Irish army was too large to stay in the field for long and was under strident demands from the starving Spaniards for prompt action.