The Flight of the Earls: Where They Landed Us

To anyone not intimately familiar the landmark moments of Irish history, the scene might sound innocuous: on September 14, 1607, some 92 Irishmen boarded a French ship on the turbulent sea inlet of Lough Swilly in Rathmullan, Co. Donegal. The vessel was was bound for Spain. The act, on a surface level, was a simple one. In context, was the culmination of years of spite, greed, conflict, and passion.

This watershed moment would be known for centuries to come as the “Flight of the Earls,” and has been remembered as one of the most mysterious and formative in the legacy of the Irish people. What drove the Earl of Tyrone and Earl of Tyrconnell to flee their homeland, and what inspired such loyalty that a vast gathering of followers was moved to join them? The answers to these questions as highly-contested as they are complex, but one thing is for certain—every story must begin somewhere. This one began with a murder.

Born in Co. Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill was, many might say, fated for great things. A son of the O’Neills, a family of powerful and respected Gaelic chieftains made all the more formidable by the support they received from occupying English forces in their claim to be the legitimate heirs to the coveted Earl of Tyrone title. But for the O’Neills, and in particular Hugh’s father, Matthew O’Neill, this was support was a curse as much as it was a honor: a vicious thirst for power ran rampant in the family, and Matthew (purported by some to be an illegitimate) was killed by the followers of his brother, Shane. This left young Hugh and his brother, Brian, in a perilous predicament; however, their usefulness to the English administration anchored in Dublin secured their safety, for it was believed that if the boys were to become dependent on the support of the Crown, the independent power of the O’Neill lords of Ulster might eventually be shattered.

Hugh O'Neill, who led the Flight of the Earls following the Nine Years War, depicted in a 19th century engraving by William Holl. (Wikimedia Commons)

So it came to be that Hugh and Brian lived safely in London until Hugh turned nine years old. Tragically, three years after their return to Ireland, Brian, like his father, was assassinated. This left young Hugh in power as the Crown-appointed Baron of Dungannon, Co. Tyrone. His early life, for the most part, was quiet after this, though in 1591, he brought about suspicion by eloping with a woman named Mabel Bagenal, the sister of a prominent English colonist in Ireland. However, his ongoing support of the Crown’s occupation allowed the matter to be overlooked, and at age 35, he took his his place as the Earl of Tyrone with full English support. It wasn’t until ten years later, in 1595, that he underwent an old Irish ritual to claim his rightful title of “The Ó Néill.” In doing this, he took command of the O’Neill clan of Ulster, and officially blackened his badge of loyalty to the occupying forces.

It wasn’t until some 22 years after the birth of Hugh O’Neill that another primary player in the Flight of the Earls came into the world. This was, interestingly, another Hugh: Hugh Roe O’Donnell, or, as has often been called in Ireland, Red Hugh. O’Donnell’s father was an ally of the Crown in Ireland who attempted to counterbalance the wild nationalist power of Shane O’Neill in Donegal, and his mother was a Scotswoman—a fact that made Red Hugh less than popular with the locals by proxy. Despite this, by age fifteen, he was betrothed to Rose O’Neill, daughter of none other than the Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill. It was a that connection set forth an alliance that would change the course of Irish history. Even before the first stirrings of action before the Flight, the exploits of the two Hughs were not to be soon forgotten.

The pieces began to fall into place for the eventual Flight of the Earls with the dawn of the Nine Years’ War, a struggle which took place in Ireland between 1593 and 1603, fought between the Gaelic forces of Hugh O’Neill and Hugh O’Donnell against the occupying English soldiers. It was remarkable in that it was the largest conflict ever fought by England during the Elizabethan era—at the height of the war, England had deployed roughly 18,000 soldiers in an attempt to quash the resistance of the Irishmen; an attempt which would, to the disappointment of many, end in success for the English forces.

"The Siege and Battle of Kinsale, 1601," from Pacata Hibernia, 1633. The battle was a decisive loss for Gaelic Ireland that led to the Flight of the Earls. (Wikimedia Commons)

Since symbolically shaking off his allegiance to the Crown, Hugh O’Neill had begun to take steps to challenge the control of the English in Ireland. With the help of Scottish connections forged by Hugh O’Donnell’s mother, he enlisted a band Scottish mercenaries known as Redshanks, as well as as Irishmen of a similar persuasion known as buanadha (or “quartered men”).

From the beginning of 1591, Hugh O’Donnell had been in contact with Philip II of Spain at his father-in-law’s request. He appealed to the monarch for aid in the struggle against England, an enemy both Spain and Ireland had in common, and used their shared dominant Catholic faith as a means of inspiring empathy. His efforts were fruitful, and in 1601, the Spanish landed in Kinsale, Co. Cork—a township almost on the opposite end of the country to O’Neill’s Ulster troops. The mistake was costly: O’Donnell was forced to lead his men on a long, hard winter march to meet Hugh O’Neill and the Spanish troops in Ireland’s south, and in January 1602, the Battle of Kinsale shook the entire county. They were eventually defeated by the acting Lord Deputy of Ireland at the time, Sir Charles Blount, better known as Lord Mountjoy.

Things looked bleak, and in an effort to reinvigorate the fire of the retreating rebels, Hugh O’Donnell publicly announced his intentions to travel to Spain in order to solicit further aid from its monarchy. But his words only angered and upset the soldiers, who saw his plan as an act of cowardice and ill faith, no matter how many Spanish soldiers he swore to bring with him on his return.

Lord Mountjoy, Sir Charles Blount, c. 1594, by an unknown English artist. (Wikimedia Commons)

In any case, it was not to be. On 10 September, 1602, Red Hugh was reported dead, allegedly assassinated with poison while courting further help in Spain. The story went that his killer was James “Spanish” Blake, an Anglo-Irish spy working on behalf of George Carew, the First Earl of Totnes, who was credited with many killings in mainland Europe at the time.

After the death of Red Hugh, the mantle of Chieftain of the O’Donnell clan fell to his younger brother, Rory. He and Hugh O’Neill’s forces were taken to a new low, fighting a kind of guerilla war as Mountjoy and his allies swept the country, flattening any larger attempts of rebellion in their path. They scorched the earth as they went, effectively devastating the civilian population’s livelihoods and food supplies.

The outlook for the Irish only grew darker by the day. In 1602, Hugh O’Neill burned his capital at Dungannon to the ground, and took to hiding in the woods. In a symbolic gesture of domination, Lord Mountjoy shattered the inauguration stone of the O’Neills at Tullaghogue. Famine ravaged the local population as a direct result of England’s scorched earth tactics, ultimately taking the lives of an estimated 60,000 people. It was, for even the most determined of fighters, too much. Rebels, including Rory O’Donnell, began to surrender. Hugh O’Neill held out until March 24, 1603, giving in just six days after the death of Queen Elizabeth I.

When King James I took the throne as Elizabeth’s successor, he was quick to issue pardons to the lords who had rebelled. (As King of Scotland, he had an intimate understanding of how control was best maintained through placating local leaders, rather than lambasting them. He also deeply wished to put a final stopper in the war that had almost driven England to bankruptcy.) Their land was returned to them, with the stipulation that they give up their Irish titles and swear their loyalty to the Crown. After doing so, young Rory was elevated to become the Earl of Tyrconnell.

Irish president Mary McAleese arrives at Rathmullan during the 400th anniversary commemorations of the Flight of the Earls in 2007. (Willie Duffin / Presidential Archive)

This uneasy peace was not built to last. In 1605, the newly-appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, gradually began to fail in upholding the terms England had agreed upon with the earls, enforcing new freeholds and threatening to charge them with treason if they did not comply with the resultant dip in income. Aware of the conflict, King James offered O’Neill an opportunity to come state his case before him in London; O’Neill never did. The situation grew more and more tense until eventually, in 1607, the earls and their allies were at breaking point.

As O’Neill saw it, only one of three paths was theirs to tread. The allies could take their leave of Ireland, seeking out a new invasion by Spanish forces; they could go to London, staying at court until O’Neill’s points of frustration were redressed; or they could, to their shame, choose to do nothing, and go on living on great swathes of Ulster land they could no longer afford to maintain.

On September 4, 1607, they chose to flee. With the Continent as their destination, O’Neill, Rory O’Donnell, and a mass of other Irish nobles took to the sea, praying for the chance to recruit a Spanish army with which they might take back their native land—effectively if eerily mirroring the desperate actions of Rory’s older brother Hugh five years before. The crossing, described in the writings of a follower named Tadhg Ó Cianáin, was not an easy one, and they were challenged by wild gales. Some, including the late Tomas Cardinal O’Fiaich, Archbishop of Armagh, claim that Hugh O’Neill owned “a gold cross which contained a relic of the True Cross, and this he trailed in the water behind the ship, and it gave some relief from the storm.” The group reached Normandy in France exactly one month after their exile began.

San Pietro in Montorio in Rome, where Hugh O'Neill and Rory O'Donnell are buried. (Lalupa / Wikimedia Commons)[/caption]

However, the Battle of Gibraltar was at this stage under way, with many Spanish fleets being decimated as the year progressed. In the interest of his country’s future, King Philip III of Spain chose to keep relations with England peaceful. Whether the earls knew this at the time of their departure has been contested by many, but much evidence suggests that this was a reality Hugh O’Neill refused to stomach. He lived out the remainder of his days in Rome, and was doggedly persistent about his plan for an new Irish invasion until his death just nine years later, in 1616. Like all of the others who sailed down Lough Swilly that September day, he passed away in exile, dispossessed as his own father had been on the day of his murder so many years before. Rory O’Donnell, too, died in Rome. Ravished by malaria, he was laid out dressed in Franciscan robes, as his ancestors had been before him. Both are now buried in San Pietro in Montorio, on Rome’s Janiculum Hill, long assumed to be the location of St. Peter's crucifixion.

Understood by many as the effective end of the old Gaelic order, the Flight of the Earls stands out as a moment in Irish history that set the stage for the radical acts that would color the years to come in the fight for independence. On September 14, 2007, its 400th anniversary was commemorated in Co. Donegal with fireworks, conferences, a regatta of tall ships, and the unveiling of a statue representing the Flight at Rathmullan by the then-Irish president, Mary McAleese.

The gravestone of Hugh O'Neill. The simple inscription translates as "To God, the greatest and best, the bones of prince Hugh O'Neill." (Peter1936F / Wikimedia Commons)

Having said this, the historical significance of the Flight of the Earls is not observed by the Irish nation alone. In 2008, the people of Rome celebrated the passing of 400 years since the Earls and their people in their city, inviting the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland to perform in Rome’s Sant’lgnazio Church. It was, in part, an acknowledgement of the valued descendants of the earls and their followers who have contributed much to the culture and history of mainland Europe: while there are some 500,000 Irish-born people living there today, an estimated 2.8 million first, second, and third generation individuals also call it home. Going beyond simple heritage, there are roughly 5 million residents in mainland Europe who actively practise pastimes of Irish culture, such as Irish dance, music, sport, and the reading of great Irish literature. In terms of figures alone, the culture’s presence is one of the most prevalent worldwide.

And interestingly, it is today estimated by the Irish Embassy in Madrid that there are approximately 30,000 Irish people living in Spain—a far cry from the 92 who arrived, exhausted and desperate, in 1607. For pleasure and business alike, Irish residents in 2018 make an average of 1.6 trips a year to the country, and though it is unlikely that everyone who does so gives thought to the earls and their loyal group of seafarers who paved the way before them, it is to these risk-takers that much of Ireland’s cultural presence in mainland Europe is owed. While these famed earls failed to return with an army, they succeeded in igniting a familiarity and fascination with the willful people of Ireland that has endured throughout the centuries. The rest, as they say, is history.