Page 204 - Demo

204 Stephen Dunford: The Journey of The IrIsh
mission, for in September 1602, the ripples of the Kinsale calamity reached the shores of Spain and he was poisoned at the castle of Simancas by an Irish double-agent named James “Spanish” Blake:Red Hugh O’Donnell was just twenty nine years old when he died. With his death, and also because it was not forgotten in Spain that Del Aguila’s army had been left by the Irish to struggle on its own for several weeks in Kinsale, Spanish plans to send further assistance to Ireland were abandoned.
Donal O’Sullivan Beare, the owner of Dunboy Castle did not acquiesce in the surrender of his stronghold to the English. In fact, he seized the castle and garrisoned it with a small force of 143 troops before Carew’s men arrived to take possession. Undeterred by this brave though foolish action, the English sent a besieging force of over 3,000 to take Dunboy, something they eventually achieved after many weeks of desperate resistence and heroic defending by the besieged-only six of the defenders escaped alive.
After the defeat at Kinsale, O’Neill and O’Donnell entrusted O’Sullivan with the com- mand of the southern rebels, or rather of the miserable remainder of them. The obdurate and ruthless methods deployed by Carew and his lieutenants had reduced this remnant until, at the end of 1602, it consisted entirely of O’Sullivan’s immediate followers, and with his forces sorely depleted, Donal O’Sullivan Beare resolved on fighting his way to Ulster. So it came to pass that on New Years Eve, 1602, he set out for that province with 1,000 of his people, 400 of whom were soldiers. They took with them only one day’s provisions, hoping to find food on the way. Their treacherous wintry route lay by Ballyvourney, Aher- low, across the river Shannon, by Aughrim and on to county Leitrim, to the castle of his dearest friend, O’Rourke of Breifne, where they were hospitably received. Out of the total thousand with which he had started the march, a march which has been described as one of the most remarkable feats of endurance ever recorded in Irish history, when he staggered into O’Rourke’s castle, O Sullivan had only eighteen soldiers, thirty-four servants, and one woman with him; cold, hunger, and continuous attacks had seen off the others. O Sullivan afterwards made his way safely to Spain where he spent the remainder of his life.
Still hoping for the promised foreign help that never really arrived, O’Neill held out for two more years. By the end of that period of horrible inevitability, his people were sorely wounded and in a pitiful state. Famine and desolation prevailed in many parts of the coun- try, and Mountjoy, who had pressed on relentlessly through the winter was by then, right in
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