Page 193 - Demo

Chapter Six 193
preparation was necessary to achieve success against the English; therefore he planned his movements with care, deliberation, cunning and great foresight.
He trained and drilled his soldiers in the most modern methods of warfare, stock-piled great stores of lead which he imported, ostensibly to roof his castle at Dungannon, but really to cast into bullets, secretly sought aid from Spain and the Pope (as did O’Donnell). But most important of all-and here his statesmanship, wisdom, resourcefulness and his in- nate knowledge of the ways of the Irish are most apparent-he allied himself with the other chiefs of Ulster, especially with the O’Donnells of Tyrconnell, his ancient family foe, uniting them in a Northern Confederecy, the League of the North, whose aim was to free Ireland from English rule. Yet, all the time he kept open lines of communication with the English Government.
Hugh O’Neill’s greatest and most steadfast ally was his in-law, the daring ighter and romantic igure, the lame-haired Aodh Ruadh O Domhnaill - ‘Red Hugh O’Donnell’, son of Black Hugh, who had earlier defeated Shane the Proud at Liford. Now while Black Hugh had remained loyal to the English, they had good reason to suspect that his son, Red Hugh, ‘a youth of great promise’ would not follow his father’s example, and in order to safeguard their own interests, they kidnapped him near Lough Swilly when he was just ifteen years old, and held him hostage in Dublin Castle. From his imprisonment he escaped twice. On the irst occasion he had not got far till he was retaken, having been informed upon and handed over to the authorities by the O’Toole’s of Wicklow.
On the second occasion, which was the night of 6 January, 1591, Nollaig na mBan, or Nol- laig Bheag -‘The Feast of the Epiphany,’ in one of the most dramatic stories of Irish history, he and two companions, Art and Henry O’Neill, sons of Shane the Proud, cut through their shackles with a ile, and by a silken rope lowered themselves down from their prison window, and in a raging snowstorm, succeeded in making good their escape.
After many hardships and perils, during which one of his companions died and he him- self lost two toes to frostbite, Red Hugh made his way north by the aid of favouring chiefs, most notably Fiach McHugh O’Byrne, the victor of Glenmalure, till he inally reached the safety of his own Donegal. In the following year his father resigned the chieftaincy and the twenty year old princeling Red Hugh was elected ‘O’Donnell’ in his stead. ‘In the nine years of life left to him,’ wrote one chronicler, ‘he was to show himself a gallant, soldierly leader of men, a staunch ally, and a faithful son of Ireland.’