Page 194 - Demo

194 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
In the meantime, Hugh O’Neill, whilst keeping up a very public pretence of loyalty to Elizabeth, continued in his taciturn preparations for rebellion; but before they were satisfac- toraly completed, an incident occurred which forced his hand and disclosed his true inten- tions. In 1588, Sir William Fitzwilliam became Elizabeth’s Viceroy in Ireland. Cruel and harsh in his dealings with the Irish chiefs, Fitzwilliam thrust several into prison, including O’Doherty and O’Gallagher, even though they were looked upon at the time as being ‘two of the most loyal subjects in Ulster’.
Furthermore, the MacMahons, O’Rourkes, and the Maguires were in open revolt, and when the English sheriff was driven from Fermanagh by Maguire, the Viceroy seized and garrisoned Maguire’s castle at Enniskillen. The garrison was then besieged by Maguire who appealed for help to his ally, O’Neill, who in turn sent his brother Cormac with a small army to Maguire’s aid. In 1594, at a battle since dubbed Beal Atha na mBriosca-‘the Ford of the Biscuits’, on account of the large supply of provisions lost by the vanquished, Maguire and Cormac O’Neill soundly defeated a force sent by the Viceroy to relieve the embattled garrison. It is probably true to say that knowing well the power of England, Hugh O’Neill would liked to have seen Spanish aid come before he joined the fray, but this was not to be, and with no longer any need for secrecy, and with a large English force mobilising to march northward toward his territory, O’Neill took to the field in open rebellion. The corpse and tear- strewn crusade known as The Nine Years War had begun.
Of this war, one account noted:
“... that rising was notable, not merely for its bigness and for its coming so near to success, but for the still more memorable fact that, since the invasion, it was the first big fight fought for truly and completely national reasons rather than for mere ter- ritorial ones-the first real sign that Irish chiefs and people were at length rising above provincialism and developing a national consciousness.”
Many of the northern chiefs, notably Red Hugh O’Donnell, joined O’Neill, and the first actions saw the confederates sweep the English from most of Ulster. Yet, despite these initial successes, the southern chieftains failed to show support for their northern country- men and their self-styled ‘League of the North.’ Elizabeth stepped up her campaign and in March 1595, an English army 3,000 strong led by Sir John Norris was defeated by O’Neill at CluainTiobraid, Clontibret, in county Monaghan, a battle which confirmed the impetus of the revolt; whilst O’Donnell entered the northern part of the province of Connacht, chaff-
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