BBC's: The Story of Ireland 2of5 - Age of Conquest

the Irish are a people forged from many migrations from earliest times the sea has carried waves of newcomers to Ireland Stone Age hunter gatherers Christian missionaries Viking warriors each has been successfully absorbed but in the middle of the 12th century Ireland will face an invasion unlike anything seen before it will set in motion one of the longest conflicts in human history in which land and faith will divide the nations the destinies of Ireland and Britain will be changed by what begins 800 years ago Ireland stands on the verge of the age of conquest Kings fault and the ground trembled so did the animals of the four masters describe the Ireland of the early 12th century it was a land of farmers ruled by clan chieftains who in turn paid homage to five provincial kings there was a high king of Ireland but he had only limited power but in the hands of a man ruthless and cunning enough to crush his political enemies this high kingship could mean something unprecedented in Irish history a land ruled from the center by one powerful figure the beginnings of a united political entity it takes a ruthless man for ruthless times Dermot McMurdo was king of Leinster an area of fertile land strategically close to the country's great urban settlement at Dublin it was said of Dermot that he prefer to be feared rather than loved and he probably would have agreed those who stood in his way were either killed or they were ritually blinded and castrated so they wouldn't produce any heirs here on the site of a 12th century Abbey Dermot displayed his characteristic ruthlessness the Abbey's were important symbols of kingly power so in 1132 when a rival dynasty appointed their woman as a Bess of Kildare Dermot was furious he as king of Leinster wanted control of this very important office so he attacked and plundered Kildare and as the annals say he had the Abbess of Kildare the most important female in the entire Irish Church put into a soldier's bed and raped to disqualify her from the office she held Adam found that shocking certainly the analysts report indicated a certain degree of shock this kind of thing by the middle of the 12th century Dermot had managed to make enemies of most of the provincial kings and when he have doctored the wife of one of them they united against him Dermot knew his likely fate as a child he'd seen his father murdered and buried with a dead dog a humiliating mark of disrespect Dermot lost his throne and his lands but he fled in time to save his life and the fleetness of foot would alter the course of Irish history Irish Kings had often made alliances with warriors on the west coast of Britain but none of these could offer the kind of help Dermot now sought to reclaim his throne the fugitive king sailed boldly further to the heart of Western Europe's mightiest Empire in the traditional telling of the Irish story Dermot is seen as the father figure for generations of traitors the man who callously sold out his country to the English but it simply wasn't like that in reality Dermot was doing what any desperate are ambitious chieftain would have done seeking the help of somebody more powerful the crucial difference was that the people he went to were the most organized military power in the medieval West these were the lands of the Normans by eleven sixty the norman empire extended from the mediterranean to britain here they'd imposed a rigid system feudalism for power flow from the king to his nobles the Normans are driven by wealth honour reputation prestige and the acquisition of land and military prowess is key to their identity is key to identity and of course also to success the Normans were superior in that they possessed cavalry and were capable of large-scale coordinated military operations the norman king henry ii would now be wooed by Dermot Mac Maura Henry was the great grandson of William the Conqueror while they often kept his court at Anjou in France he was king of England Henry had contemplated attacking Ireland long before Dermot came to his French Court in 1166 Henry ii was more than a match and political cunning for the Irishman who now came seeking his help in what history might call the first ever Anglo Irish summit the RUF came from the western fringes of Christendom met Henry at his court a Norman poem described the explicitly feudal nature of the contract between the two Dermot addresses Henry henceforth all the days of my life on condition that you be my helper so that I do not lose everything you I shall acknowledge a sire and Lord what Dermot means is I will give you land if you give me an army this suits a king with restless land hungry knights and who Cleaves to that great alibi of conquerors the belief that he has a civilizing mission this will become an enduring theme of England's actions in Ireland a decade earlier when he'd first thought about invading Ireland Henry had sought the support of a higher power Ireland is linked to Europe not only by trade but by that most central of medieval realities religion the Pope isn't just spiritual master of Christendom he's a temporal power broker as well if he lends his support to an invasion then Irish Chiefs are obliged to offer their allegiance to the man who carries his blessing Pope Adrian the fourth had his own agenda the Irish Church had become worryingly independent granting permission for an invasion the Pope told King Henry that in order to enlarge the borders of the church and set bounds to the progress of wickedness he should take possession of that island Henry promised a levy an annual tax of a penny per hearth in Ireland the money would be sent to Rome this is a period of spectacular upheaval across Europe indeed this is the time of the Crusades it is a time of the wars against Islam but it is also the time of the expansion of Western Christendom into what we call Eastern Europe into other parts of the British Isles into the Iberian Peninsula so the area of just one of a number of people they are seen as barbaric and ripe for absurd LaVon callate with Henry's backing Dermot now recruited an Anglo Norman Baron from Wales to lead the invasion Richard de Clare known to friends and enemies a Strongbow Strongbow was a man of restless energy and ambition and in front of this night dermis dangled a tantalizing prospect lush acres of Irish land and his daughter's hand in marriage on the 23rd of August 1170 an anglo-norman force led by a friend of strong girls arrived here in County Wexford they were used to Raiders along this coast so when the Irish looked out and saw the Norman vessel they could have been forgiven for thinking this was just another passing incursion but a new history was about to come bearing in from the sea the contemporary accounts tell us the Irish ran naked into battle against things they lacked um they're literally throwing stones at these angry Norman tonight the battle was a savage encounter the invaders hacked and pleased their way through the Irish in one refinement of the art of murder they broke people's legs before hurling them into the sea they had one notable killer who went by the name of Alice the vicious she said to have killed 70 men in revenge for the death of her lover this was the same Norman ferocity that had routed the Arab defenders of Sicily and the warriors of Harold England a century before it was ferocity with a message submit or be annihilated when Strongbow stormed the city of waterford the defenders were overwhelmed and the victor moved to claim the first part of his Irish bargain surrounded by the Irish dead and in the smoking ruins of a church the priest and Daniel mclees as 19th century painting blesses the union of Strongbow and Dermott's daughter Aoife Irish nationalists would cast this as the beginning of 800 years of English oppression this painting is one of those great examples of how both sides in the Irish story can look at a representation of an historic event and take from it totally different meanings nationalists see this as a moving evocation of their subjugation the forced marriage of Ireland and England but the painter was a cork born unionist who represented a complex Irishness he felt a deep attachment to an ancient Gaelic past but also to the British Empire of course what really matters is how Strongbow saw things and for him and the rest of the Anglo Irish nights this was the beginning of a great land grab Dermot died soon after before he could enjoy the fruits of victory and he was succeeded as king of Leinster by Strongbow here begins a great theme of Ireland storing the fear of English monarchs that Ireland will be used as a base to attack them for King Henry had never trusted strong and now feared he would set up a stronghold in Ireland in 1171 Henry brought a large army to Ireland and received Strongbow submission but he also confronted the Gaelic chiefs when Henry lands with his army his archers his horsemen it's a pretty formidable sight for the Irish chiefs and they're faced with a dilemma do you resist this man or do you make peace what is the choice they eventually make for about four years Irish kings were suffering and their lands were literally been taken from them by Anglo Norman barons who they considered to be freebooters they looked at Henry's arrival and they considered him to be perhaps a stabilizing force the Irish kings welcomed henry ii to ireland we didn't hear too much about that when i was learning my history as a youngster in national school no I didn't but again it was considered by them I think as the better of two options they accepted the English King as their lord and feasted with him on a Norman dish they hated roast crane the culinary symbol of Irish submission Henry left Ireland the following year but the legacy of the conquest he launched can be seen here in this unique 14th century charter of Waterford what is this extraordinary series of documents tell us about the Irish relationship with the English crown this great charter role of Waterford could have come from an English City the earliest contemporary portraits of a King of England that still survived are here in Waterford a city that is anxious to impress the King and protest their loyalty to him it is for all intents and purposes an English city over the next 50 years the anglo-norman x' established power bases in the main population centers and crucially they moved to set up greater states on the best land in the country Ireland was about to be transformed historically we've tended to course the English a great deal but the Normans did quite a bit for us to me if you look around Ireland today the most characteristically Irish traits are English our parliamentary system was brought to island by the anger norms the system of law that we have is the English common law system and of course the language that has produced most of the great writers of Ireland for choice and the eighth's is the English language the division of the country into 32 caddies that process began within about 20 years of the younger normal when we look around the countryside in Ireland we think of fields and hedges almost non-existent in Ireland before the 12th century your classical image of rural Ireland is actually a product of the arrival of the English in the 12th century the Normans embraced a Roman tradition which saw conquered races as barbarians it would become a recurring theme of other colonists described the Irish in the English telling of the Irish story a stock figure starts to emerge wild violent a buffoon a creature not of intellect but of instinct now of course colonized peoples are referred to in this way in the language of the Conqueror across the globe but in Ireland the roots of this stereotype lie in the writings of a man who came here not as a soldier but on a spiritual mission the 12th century priest and chronicler giralda scam rensis Gerald of Wales profiled the Irish in his topography a Hibernian seizures on the throne he's the classic boring churchmen canon lawyer great advocate of celibacy lover of the Pope lover of the rich well-connected what he does this produced this remarkable book with maps with drawings and accounts of the Ireland that he found at that time and he says my book is a mixture of greeting books and eyewitness and therefore as the surety of truth of course just because he says he went to Ireland and saw lots of things doesn't mean he hadn't an agenda one of the drawings in here is of a woman having sex with a ghost and it's full of attempts to portray the Irish as barbarous pernicious as he puts it himself wallowing in Vice yes here you have a group of men taking part in a kingship ritual he doesn't see this as an ancient ritual this ritual was first described 400 years before this book was produced it rituals the ritual slaughter of a horse but he sees this as an example of how they are lawless they are outside the sphere of Roman law they have never had the benefits of the Roman Empire and so they're doing the wildest and most bizarre things you could imagine this is a medieval precursor to imperialism and the justifications which one had for imperialism the same rhetoric of looking at the unusual behavior and the unusual rituals of anthropologists in India in the 19th century that same attitude can be found here 200 years into the conquest on the colony is unfinished beyond the towns the Anglo Normans hold no sway the Irish raid and retreat into the mountains the Gaelic Chiefs saw in the buildings of the Normans the mark of permanence the colonists had thrown their world pastoralist based on the loyalties of clam into retreat a stone curtain separated English from native the old aristocracy seized with resentment the Irish chieftains decide to launch Ireland's first diplomatic mission appealing for help to the most powerful figure in Christendom as it was a pope who trust given legal sanction for the invasion of Ireland it was to Rome that the Irish Chiefs now complained about their unjust treatment at the hands of the colonists written in 1317 their document is known as the remonstrance of the princes tell me what we see in this document this is the worst picture of English rule since the invasion not a document that mince his words is it certainly isn't talks about hey the Irish are savaged by the vicious teeth of the English and the fallen into an abyss of slavery it's very very vivid imagery but there's one particularly agrees some example where Thomas declared has had a banquet with one of the Gaelic rulers in at the end of the banquet he is taken from the table and his head is amputation to turtle Kwok way cavite exactly yeah and this is being sent to the Pope sack this is what the English are doing to us yeah but Irish complaints were of little matter in Rome the Pope passed the documents to King Edward ii who did nothing the simple truth was that English Kings mired in struggles of their own were little bothered with Ireland English influence remained strong in the Fertile area around Dublin and North Leinster lands they call the pale until as would happen so often the stories of other places collided with that of Ireland the first was war a Scottish army fighting the English opened a new front here in Ireland but the worst disaster of all arrived here the port of hope in July 13:48 the Black Plague ravaged the towns and ports where the anglo-norman 's were strongest a witness described how the disease would carry off a man his wife and their children all as he put it in the common way of death many of the English Lords began to abandon their castles and lands and fled back to England others had their property forcibly taken as the Gaelic Lords exploited English weakness what we see in this period is a resurgent Gaelic chiefdom people are coming back taking lands dab and 'end by the anglo-norman overlords but it seems like a real cultural Renaissance of the people who feel confident in themselves again what we see is our regrouping from 1150 we have basically no Irish manuscript no Gaelic manuscripts but from 1350 we have a large number of very well decorated very beautifully put together manuscripts that it does seem to be a century during which the Gaelic aristocracy and the Gaelic learning classes are trying to find new ways of asserting their cultural distinctiveness the more tea on dawn a greener GaN Xiang cthe on shanlee go brach our gopher rocky koi gham attention why in this period does poetry assume such importance the unstable political climate of Ireland at this time art or gold work or tapestry might not be such a good investment but in terms of securing your status securing your fame you know a poem can travel across the entire Gaelic world from carry to to the Hebrides when the O'Neill comes to London someone observes with the states that his poets are sitting with him at the same table and eating from the same dish we get these glimpses sometimes of Gaelic custom and the the high status accorded to the poet as Gaelic Ireland revives the English colony retreats there are a few military expeditions by the crown and an attempt to separate English and Irish by law but Ireland simply isn't a strategic priority until near the end of the 15th century the crown is given a rude awakening after years of civil war in England two different pretenders to the throne attack from Ireland supported by Irish Lords in their castle as the Lords were local Emperor's there was no strong central government to contain them London might as well have been the moon for all the real influence the monarch could bring to bear the great anglo-norman families had symbolized English power but now they could make alliances with Gaelic Chiefs over three centuries they become if not entirely Irish certainly no longer truly English this is an unsettled land where warlords squabble and London's writ does not run but the ascent to the throne of a new king in 1509 will bring about the most concerted attempt yet to subdue the Irish Lords Henry the eighth will come to see these free roving Lords as a threat to his power and men who need to be taught a lesson Henry sought to create the state ruled by a single king that had eluded Bryan Burrough and Jonathan tomorrow the first ever united ireland but under the control of an english king and his officials under the centralizing rule of The Tudors Ireland will no longer be a wild colonial fringe where Old English and Gaelic Lords rule themselves here is an English administration coming along second table we tidy this up for you we will impose a legal framework in which your position will not be threatened at all you'll continue to be local regional boss you'll continue to have this wealth that you treasure so much but we'll do this by legal means but such promises fail to impress the powerful Fitzgerald's the old English Lords have killed her they've been the Kings representatives in Ireland now they saw their power slipping away in 1534 they rebelled just as he had done with the Troublesome lords in England Henry crushed them ruthlessly as the Tower of London beckoned to any troublesome Nobles Henry declared himself king of Ireland but Henry would never settle his Irish problem for at home he was moving towards a fateful entanglement Henry's enduring legacy to Ireland was forged in the chambers of his court there a domestic imperative propelled him into action that would profoundly change the way the Irish and the English saw each other Henry had failed to obtain a male heir from his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in 1533 he disobeyed the Pope by divorcing Catherine and marrying Anne Boleyn Henry created the Church of England with himself at its head in this manner England joined the great European Reformation the Protestant revolution which was already challenging church corruption doctrine and the power of the papacy Henry imposed his new church on a reluctant English clergy through terror and the seizing of church lands but in Ireland he lacked a standing army that could enforce observance of the new faith and so Ireland remained Catholic Henri's unfinished business here left a dangerous legacy in a Europe where religion was becoming a battleground political loyalty and religious loyalty were increasingly seen as equal one to the other where you had communities that were divided and grounds a religion that you almost invariably had civil conflict so the diversity in religion meant a challenge to the authority of monarchs in Europe the Pope led a powerful movement against the reformation religious orders like the Jesuits enforced a new militant Catholicism in Spain the Inquisition's crushed the Protestant faith and it was sent into retreat across much of the rest of Europe even in England the Reformation was overthrown as Henry's Catholic daughter Mary succeeded to the throne in the terror that followed Mary's Protestant sister Elizabeth saw hundreds of her co-religionists killed Elizabeth Anto supporters remembered that terror when she became Queen in 1558 nasaw Catholicism as being the auger which was always threatening ADA liberties of Protestantism and that Jadis was represented by the tyranny of Spain which had threatened the invasion of England itself at forts like this on the Kent coast her soldiers scanned the horizon for the foreign invasion fleets but they were not the only threat because to the west lake athlete Ireland there an increasing number of young people from Ireland who have been trained in continental seminaries and returned to Ireland imbued with the zeal of the Catholic counter-reformation intent and resisting at the advancement of Protestantism within the the Queen does not launch a Protestant crusade in Ireland for she's no religious zealot above all Elizabeth demands security and so she dispatches a new breed of soldiers and officials the Elizabethan adventurers the English adventurers who arrived here how do they view the Irish when they leave the pale and they go out into the Gaelic interior and in Gaelic Ireland they see people who live in a fashion which is completely opposite to the way things operate in England they don't live a settled lifestyle they are a pastoral people who follow the herd Ireland is a heavily wooded landscape the Irish are seen as being wood people they come out of the woods to attack you night Titan to burn your tent to steal your livestock to steal your whim they can disappear they can see you but you can't see that there are seen as a menace they're seen as enemies of order as the adventurers seized land and curtailed private armies the great lords Gaelic and English faced a dilemma to rebel or work with the English some like the Gaelic you O'Neill went with the crown but in monster the angle Norman Desmond's rebelled Elizabeth the first fears the Irish rebel Lords and chieftains linking up with England's foreign enemies and isn't it totally unrealistic fear the rebels send a petition to fill up the second in Spain and to the Pope in Rome the rebels are not seriously motivated by religion but religion is bridge to Europe it's a bridge to finance it a bridge to money and weapons and an invasion force Elizabeth's forces launched a policy of scorched earth one of the most notorious English commanders were Sir Humphrey Gilbert the record says he killed man woman and child he spoiled wasted and burned so that he might leave nothing of the enemies in safety which he might possibly waste or consumed the age of total war had arrived in Ireland Gilbert also ordered the decapitation of entire villages and decorated the path to his tent with heads relatives of his victims would be made to walk along the path he boasted later at the site of the heads of their dead father's brother's children kinsfolk and friends wrote great terror they're also interested of course in head money how do you collect the reward on a dead rebel you chop off their head right so you have bags of heads being sent from some part of Ireland to Dublin where there exhibited which adds to the horror of the Elizabethan Wars but this wasn't simply a matter of the Irish fighting the invaders some Irish Lords helped the crown to protect their own power here at the National Archives in London is an Elizabethan document detailing how one Irish Lord behaved this is an extraordinary document because it brings in a very real sense that age of atrocity to life you can look back at Irish history in this period and thousands of people seem to vanish into anonymous massacres and battles what you get here list after list of names their Gaelic names over in McCarthy a total of over 5,000 names and they're killed by the army of another Irishman the Earl of Ormond this butchers bill he sends to London to convince an English queen that he is loyal to the crown for Elizabeth Irish loyalty would become an increasingly urgent question as the religious crisis in Europe escalated in Paris in 1572 came an event that would define for Protestants the terror of the counter-reformation here in the morning of August 24th the feast of Saint Bartholomew the bells of this church San German dogs arawa rang out not in celebration but as a signal for killing to begin Catholic death squads fanned out across the city targeting Protestants in the worst religious massacres Europe had ever known thousands were butchered amid such confusion and eyewitness reported everyone was allowed to kill whoever he pleased the bodies were hurled into the River Seine whose waters ran red with the blood of the murdered in Rome the Pope ordered bonfires lit and the singing of the today I'm in celebration for this glorious triumph over a perfidious race in Protestant England there was alarm French refugees from the Catholic violence were flooding here into the East End of London bringing with them tales of atrocity in the minds of the English Protestant establishment there loomed the question would England be next English fears were confirmed when the Desmond's rebelled again and succeeded in getting papal help in 1579 a fleet of papal troops landed and county carry to aid the monster rebels part of the small force would find itself besieged here at Caraga foil castle and north carry an Italian captain sixteen Spaniards done fifty Irish defended this castle they were attacked by an Elizabethan force with heavy guns and after three days the defences were breached it was said in the fighting that followed these walls were slippery with blood what happens at Carragher foil and in other massacres foreshadows and new kind of European warfare where the tactics of massacre starvation of salutary terror are becoming widespread it also helps to convince Elizabeth of the need for a durable solution to her Irish problem Elizabeth's is an age of turbulent energy in literature science in exploration and the hunger for new lands great empires are forming Spanish and English like the very first invader Henry the second Elizabeth imagines Ireland being civilized by Englishmen a place where no dainty flower or herb that grows on ground no our Barret with painted blossoms dressed and smelling sweet but there it might be found the landscape of Ireland was about to undergo profound change the axis of the Elizabethans echoed through the great forests as they cleared away the hiding places of rebels and made space for plantation the idea is to create an English garden in wild Ireland among those given estates where a young adventurer called Sir Walter Raleigh and his friend the poet edmund spenser in his most famous poem The Faerie Queene Spencer wrote who will not mercy unto others show how can he mercy ever hope to have but mercy was noticeably absent in Spencer's role as apologist for Elizabethan policy in Ireland Spencer had been present at massacres and defended his commander the Lord deputy of Ireland against charges that he was a bloody man his loyalty was rewarded with a forfeit at estate Spencers friend Walter Raleigh was also granted 40,000 acres of land around the Blackwater Valley and from this house in the term of y'all he would set forth on his adventures in the new world Raleigh and Spencer epitomized the contradictions of Elizabeth's adventure in Ireland Raleigh was an enthusiastic killer of rebels yet here in this room he would sit with Spencer and discuss the finer points of English verse both men were willing to see people subjected to famine in order to clear the land and they rationalized at all with the belief that they had come to Ireland on a civilizing mission Spencer sees his role as advocate of hard measures to ensure the victory of English civilization in Ireland he views the Irish as people who need serious correction some 30,000 Irish lost their lives many to famine by the late 1580s 25 years after she'd come to power Elizabeth had subdued the Irish in Monster Lenstra and koloth the leaders were dead or in hiding the people destitute but there was one great obstacle to English domination in Ireland and it lay far to the north in a province that would become synonymous with the conflict between the two islands this is taluk old the hill of the Warriors seat of the O'Neill's Lords of the ancient province of Ulster ulster was the most Gaelic of the Irish provinces and was the stronghold of hue of new hue O'Neill is one of the most fascinating figures in the story of Ireland he embodied the complexities of an age of dramatic change O'Neill could be a ruthless killer a wily charmer and a master of the art of compromise whatever the situation demanded the imperative for O'Neill was to protect the power of his family constantly maneuvering he rode alongside English adventurers against Irish chiefs and was rewarded with the earldom of Tyrone he was a man who did his best to fit in with the English system for much of his career the odds were on going with the Elizabethan project of the extension of English laws English systems of administration and English systems of the land holding the difficulty is that once you commit to this English deal ya make enemies and those enemies will increasingly come from the ranks of the adventurers envious of his position and lands O'Neill is caught in a rapidly changing world the English with whom he tried to make a deal are advancing inexorably and so he makes a momentous decision no longer will the Earl of Tyrone be an enforcer for the crown he will turn against Elizabeth in 1595 o'neill allied himself with the powerful chieftain red Hugh O'Donnell and prepared for war trained in the English ways of warfare and bolstered by Spanish advisors O'Neill begins to push back the English forces from Ulster at the Battle of the yellow Ford in August 1598 viewing the well-armed English O'Neill told his men that victory lay not in senseless Armour but in courageous souls 900 English are killed in the same number desert as the war ground on a furious Elizabeth rounded on her commander for his failure to stop or kneel it must be the queen of England's fortune she declared to make a bhaskara to be accounted so famous a rebel little do you know how he have blazed in foreign parts the defeats of regiments the death of captives and the loss of men of quality O'Neal's victory sparked rebellions elsewhere in Ireland far to the south lands recently planted and tamed rose again here in monstered rebels descend from the woods farms are burned the English planters are taken by surprise and many are butchered in Munster the attempt to make the land civil according to English ways is overthrown among the English refugees fleeing ireland is the poet edmund spenser as ireland moved towards a defining confrontation O'Neill saw to rally both the Gaelic Chiefs and the Old English to his banner Hugh O'Neill sought a unifying cause but how was he going to achieve that in a country where Lord squabbled and provinces were disunited he turned to the one unifying symbol in all the existing varieties of Irishness the Catholic religion from now on he O'Neill's struggle for power against the English would be characterized as a battle for faith and fatherland I will employ myself to the utmost of my power he wrote for the extirpation of heresy for the delivery of our country from infinite murders wicked and detestable policies the English regarded O'Neal's militant piety as a cynical ploy on the Earl of Essex met him during peace negotiations he remarked hang thee up there caressed as much for religion as my horse but O'Neill had made an extraordinary connection one that would resonate through Irish history between religion and Irish my dentist Pope Clement the 8th declared O'Neill captain general of the Catholic army in Ireland cast as the Irish David fighting an English go liar O'Neill asked King Philip of Spain for help the Spanish could see the value and tying down a large English force in Ireland but Philip would prove a cautious Ally he instructed his secretary to see what is the very smallest day that will be needed if it be so small that we can give it we will help them on the morning of September 21st 1601 a Spanish fleet of 33 ships carrying four and a half thousand soldiers appeared here off the coast of cork bearing down on the town of Kinsale but from the beginning the expedition was dogged by bad luck the army they had come to meet was waiting far to the north in Ulster the Spanish had landed in the wrong part of Ireland as the forces of the English Lord Mountjoy massed at Kinsale O'Neill and O'Donnell made an epic march through the Irish winter the English have by now massed around 6,000 troops that can say they besieged the Spanish and waited months in parentis conditions for the Irish to arrive the phrase turning-point is one that swirls promiscuously through Irish history usually summoned up by one side or the other to make a political point but Irish and English Catholic and Protestant all agree that what happens here it can sail will alter the balance of power in Ireland forever by dawn on Christmas Eve 1601 the two sides are ready for battle the spanish and irish of a master force of nine and a half thousand men against an English army weakened by disease to around six thousand hardened by relentless war the Irish are tough fighters when he sees the Irish the English commander montjoy he says the kingdom is lost the gravity of the situation is very clear to him he realizes this defeat beckons unless some almost a miracle can happen the load Amla who'd marched separately from O'Neill became lost and failed to make his rendezvous according to the Spanish there was a catalogue of tactical blunders O'Donnell alerted the English with a loud call to arms in the confusion O'Neill left his hilltop position and went to open ground but his men were more vulnerable on seeing the hill on occupied a Spanish witness said the enemy closed up onto it he grasped his opportunity the English cavalry now charged downhill and O'Neal's men the iris were fighting in open ground against English cavalry that had the run of the field the Irish had never really been in that situation before what it essentially comes down to at the end of the day is that the English had stirrups the fact that the English soldiers had stirrups meant they could drive home a charge of the Lance because the stirrup takes the shock you don't get knocked off back at the horse where his Irish had shorter horses they carried their Lance's over arm but although it gave them extra manoeuvrability it meant that they couldn't charge another body of horse so the fate of Ireland hung honester more or less yes according to the Spanish eyewitness eight hundred men were killed in the route most of the Irish survivors made for Ulster while the Spanish sailed home the Irish should have won the Battle of Kinsale there's no question of it but they don't circumstances go against them and the entire course of Irish history is altered as a result so the Spanish can sail was a military fiasco and they would never intervene in Ireland again the English saved their colony but the war was ruinously expensive it almost bankrupted the crown but for the Gaelic Lords can sail was the moment that broke their power forever Mountjoy laid waste to O'Neal's lands in ahlstrom Mountjoy understood well the power of symbols in Ireland and when he arrived here at tolik oak the hill of the Warriors he first ordered his troops to lay waste to the surrounding countryside they then came here and shattered the stone upon which generations of the O'Neill's have been crowned Hugh O'Neill surrendered and was allowed to keep his title and some of his land but he knew as well as his enemies did that his real power had been destroyed on the 14th of December 16 hundred and seven O'Neal and O'Donnell and their families left Ulster for Europe the peasants over whom they drooled were left to make their peace with new masters Hugh O'Neill died in exile in Rome nine years later still dreaming of leading an invasion of his homeland for the English the rebellion had proved that a Catholic Ireland would always be a threat the flight of the Earl's is one of the most romanticized images in Irish history but now that they were gone the question was what would replace them if Ireland couldn't be made loyal an entire order would be transplanted here that was Protestant loyal to the British crown and determined to stay the death of the old order would give birth to a new age of conflict consequences we live with still you you

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Published: Sun Nov 18 2012