The Nine Years' War - Dr James O'Neill

now the nine years war for one thing it's terribly named actually the cult of nine years war and it's a conflict between a confederation of irish lords led by hugh nailer tyrone and it's sometimes called tyrone's rebellion but that doesn't really fit it because though tyrone was at war with the english crime there was also hugh maguire of vermont there was also red hue donald in donegal there's also the auroras in the room there's also the mcmahons in monan and there was famous burn in wetlaw and what we saw was a confederation of irish lords who fought a war against the english crown that's of elizabeth the first war spread initially in ulcer but it spread throughout ireland so that though the first shots are fired in for mana and it spreads to the rest of ulster and then spreads south uh into the irish midlands in the comic by the you're talking about by 1599 you're talking that this war had spread all the way to the the southern southern irish coastlines along munster and in cork [Music] and this war was a challenge the english kind of challenged the crown of elizabeth first and it was really unprecedented because the tutors had a habit of fighting wars like the bolton glass wars of the wars uh in monsters that they would have fought individual irish lords but what we see here is an alliance that really shocked the english crime and not only did it give a defeat to the english crown it also pushed the power of english crown all of the english crown in ireland to the point of collapse where after only uh five years of war you're talking that the english crime was pretty much hanging on by its fingernails dispositioning iron it really came close to english power being snuffed out in ireland that's how close it came why this all happened it's really quite strange is that it was sort of this perfect storm it happened and i'd say the seeds first happened in 1588 when you have the spanish armada and you have the where those ships get wrecked along the irish coast and what you see is that the political links are established between the irish lords and philip ii in spain and the the second spain was actually the predominant par in europe at the time and so when you have these political links fostered then you start to see that philip ii offers backing both financial and military and political support for that more importantly in europe to the irish lords if they'll rebel against the protestant elizabeth the first of england but that's not just it that's that's far too easy it could just be one thing it also happens at a time when there's uh english captains in english lords busy grasping trying to erode the power of the irish lords for their own benefit people like bingham and connor or henry bagnol and uri and they're chipping away at the irish lord's par and control and lands for their own benefit so this is all for for their own benefit so the irish lords are feeling under threat but that's not just as well also this is the time when they have probably one of the most corrupt uh lord deputies ever and tudor ireland and that was uh william fitzwilliam who was busy turning a blind eye to the rapacious activities of the captains and comic and i'll start the english captains in comic milster just to get rich so this all combines at the one time at the start of the 1590s and creates a position a place where it just took a spark to set off the this conflagration that would like burn all over ireland and that's exactly what happened the spark that actually sets it off is the the this tinder box that's being created by rapacious english captains the threats to irish large pattern money and the cr and the offers of spanish support is a new captain a new uh sheriff for what it's called is sent into for mana in 1593 and starts immediately reading the lands of hugh maguire now they'd seen this all before um they'd seen this happen in uh modern uh in 1590 which broke up the part of mcmahon's and what they were doing what they could see is that this was again the crown moving on irish land starting to break up the irish lordships but when they see that and initially maguire can't do anything he doesn't have the military forces but tyrone who's his father-in-law sends him military forces under his brother cornwall baron o'neill and since thousands of true at least at least a thousand troops to support maguire and maguire throws out the sheriff a guy called willis uh and then on the back that's in spring 1593 and in may 1593 maguire erupts in the comet and starts spoiling lands all along northern canada and and that's where he starts that's where the war starts to move out beyond ulster and that's where the first shots are fired the styles of warfare that happened at the time now what were two the english were used to fighting the irish and the the irish had a very traditional style with the axe wielding gal glass and the and the light current and that's what they were used to fighting but this isn't usual times this uh hugh nail has started the reform the way irish troops fight uh in 1588 the where you have the arrival of the spanish when they're washed along the coast though many of the spanish spanish are killed some are actually given refuge and o'neill tyrone is one of these people who gives them refuge and he keeps has spanish captains at dungannon and they with them and with english captains underpay start to train his troops away from the old traditional methods and start to bring in modern methods you use pike and firearms which the english themselves are using um and firearms actually guns they're called calibers they're like a light musket become the predominant weapon for irish troops but what o'neill does or sorry what tyrone does is rather than just copy the english which many people thought that he did it they even write up until modern history they thought he just caught with the english absolutely did not he took the benefits of engl of the the gunpowder revolution which happened continental europe of pike and shot as they were known and blends them with the advantages of irish warfare and that was speed and flexibility so what he does is he creates a hybrid modernized irish force that used pike and shot but are very fast moving and very flexible and can move in small units and when faced with that english are just caught flat-footed at the start of the war they send troops as they had always done they send like a large uh maybe a thousand force of of pike and shot and cavalry which before years before had always proved adequate in suppressing the irish lords not this time what they're what they find is uh in 1594 and 1595 is they find that when they put their troops in the field the english troops were just outclassed every single time because they could be outpaced and outmaneuvered and more importantly out fought by troops that are better trained and using modern weapons in a better and more flexible way than the english could even come to terms with at the time now the battle of the yellow ford uh happened in uh 14th august 1598 and in this we see the zenith of irish military ability we see the absolute peak of it why it happens is that during an expedition in 1597 the english crown led by the lord deputy placed a fort on the blackwater river with an english garrison of about 250 men this fort almost instantly becomes cut off because it took an army a field army to resupply this fort and tyrone knew this and so we had this perfect hostage to fortune why he ends up actually besieging it because as long as he had this fort beleaguered on his lands essentially he had the the crown like a like a bull by the nose that they were always tied to this but what happens is the english develop a plan to send a amphibious exposition up to the foil and land the force on derry o'neill doesn't really have a navy worst week and also he can't counter that so what he does is he works to his strengths and he increases the blockade on this fort forcing the crime descent the field army to break it thinking they would they sent the most powerful field army put in the field at that time almost 4 000 troops with 300 cavalry that at the time the english cavalry were predominant that wherever they went the irish had very little account of them so they sent this very well equipped uh and well-provisioned force of 4000 men under sir henry bagno who by the way was tyrone's brother-in-law and absolutely despised tyrone with a passion which i think tyrone mutually despised bagno and so he sends this force that was like uh three and a half thousand troops to pike and shot they had cannon they had horses they had everything was in their benefit it was in their advantage and so they had no reason to think they were gonna lose what tyrone does that he pulls everyone together he pulls maguire together he pulls o'donnell he pulls a rock he pulls sorely boy mcdonald the scots from the north coast are also there and he prepares the ground he digs trenches he uh he digs stick pits and he creates a landscape which will work to his advantage the english set out and their sex regiments supported by the artillery supported by their horse thinking that there's nothing going to stop them they find this large my long trench about a mile away from the fort and they think well it's just a trench it's not defended but they actually send troops over this trench the english century over this trench and then they found out that what tyrone has done has prepared the landscape where he's cut them off from the support of their cavalry and neutralized the english's most effective arm then deploys his skirmishing uh calvin the shot along the flanks of the english who pour fire and on the flanks of the english column all the while hammering this lead regiment that's trapped behind this trench that eventually collapses and it's slaughtered before they can actually re-link link back up with bagnall's head of the force the english are also hugely unlucky in that at one point in the battle uh bagnol apparently raises his advisor to see what's going on with his shot in the head and killed instantly double down on their bad luck as there's also a powder explosion as someone goes as an english shot goes to refill his ammunition he forgets that he's carrying a lit match in his hand and uh we reckon um reports say they're two barrels or four barrels so that's either 200 or 400 pounds of gunpowder explode in the center of the exposition devastating it and so in disorder and apparently this grits swear the smoke uh sweeps over the hill and the irish busy jump in with both feet and just engaged destroy this head of the column and the english do manage to actually retreat in some order it's not a right but there's a heavy defeat that they lose almost half their man either deserted or killed now the effect of this is like a it's like a thunderclap in dublin dublin there is panic there is nothing to stop o'neill moving on dublin there's just no one left but o'neill doesn't do it they in dublin they actually send a letter essentially begging them not to to have mercy on their on uh on the troops that are not that are penned in armagh o'neil lets them go he disarms them he takes all their weapons off and takes all their money off them and takes all their equipment off them but he lets almost 2 000 men go and there's been many reasons why people say well why did he do that he had no reason to he said only this wasn't a war fought without rules this there was rules not only was the rules but o'neil actually carried for some of the wounded in armagh and had them returned uh when they were fit to so that this what it wasn't no holds barred but people said well why didn't they move on dublin i'd say the answer there's not a huge amount of detail saying why some have speculated well he didn't really want to offend the queen that much to tell you the truth killing half of armor he was offensive enough but the amphibious force the people he killed wasn't the target of the operation the operation was to deflect the amphibious force being sent for the fall which he could encounter with it because he had no navy but he could because then since there was nothing to defend dublin the english were forced to send that army to defend dublin so therefore by the defeat in at the yellow forward of english meant that the major threat tuning which was the amphibious force was deflected so therefore that was that was the strategic goal not killing the troops of the yellow forward the effect it also had was there's a huge amount of people depended on reputation loyalties depended on the reputations of the people who are being loyal to this is throughout ireland so if an overlord could show strength that's how he gained loyalties many times that that he was the strongest and that's how people would move down this echoed throughout ireland o'neill had put down a marker that i am the most powerful force in ireland the crimes of rhett does not count here and he's shown it demonstrably by the fact that he didn't highlight this army on the on the black water what happens uh the month later is that he all he has to do is send a small force and the monster less than 800 men and almost immediately the monster plantation which had been set up uh after the desmond wars in 1585 which had seen a plantation throughout monster of english settlers almost overnight that's overthrown it could almost be called a popular revolt because the nobles and monsters didn't really know it was going to happen that wasn't orchestrated but you get this upright probably closer to the 1641 reason where you see what the uh the lords would call the church the the landless they rose up and it was only the monster irish lords actually had to jump in and sort of get control of it before it got out of hand but you actually saw things like that you hadn't seen in previous parts of the wars where you get to see atrocities you get to see mistreatment civilians you get to see um the kind of uh barbarity that hadn't been a part of the war we see civilians uh and murders uh civilians being mistreated and victimized and brutalities and atrocities that wasn't really part of the war but what you see almost overnight is this total collapse of the english position in monster and the overthrow of a plantation that was years in the megan so by the end of the year the fruits of the yellow forward means that the english are really english control is really precarious munster is essentially lost apart from the wall towns comet is mostly lost apart from the wall times ulster the only footholds the crown has is in yuri and carrick fergus and so what you're seeing here is and this victory is lauded throughout europe so politically and militarily the irish lords and the confederation of irish lords is really in the ascendant and that momentum gains irish allies from in the midlands and in monster and everywhere else because essentially no one wants to be on the losing side and very much at the end of 1590 of 1598 the crown are very much looking like bullies inside this almost collapsed the english position when people say that tyrone didn't want to offend the queen by not moving on dublin well she very much took offense it and literally commits essentially the single largest commitment of troops and money the next year under the crown favorite uh they are uh the ireland essex now the um the art of essex had quite the reputation as a mildred man and he sent with over it the army is expanded to over 18 000 troops and huge amounts of resources are sent with them this is their big this is the crown's big move to take back what's been lost and he's given explicit orders move on to her own move in the north he absolutely makes a terrible mess of it rather than moving on the north he procrastinates and he moves into the monster and just footage away his troops and goodwill and and strength and money on this pointless meander through monster which doesn't really achieve an awful lot a few castles are taken but it achieves nothing but squanders time and squanders money um and certainly later in 1599 when he does eventually move north he just falls for o'neill's traditional delaying tactics o'neill knew that war isn't fought just with guns and munitions it's fought with delay it's fought with alliances it's fought with lies and he makes this another one of these traces with essex and essex then abandons his position uh travels over the england without permission uh and then is eventually um has this really abortive coup against the queen is imprisoned and then executed so again by 1599 as if the end of 1598 is bad 1599 is worse uh i was described by some officers as a near-lost kingdom the irish were in the ascendant everywhere there was even there was landowners in the peel were paying taxes to tyrone that's where they went there was nothing to stop them but what this near lost kingdom did is it forced the english to stop and think and reassess that we're doing something wrong here and again what they did is now that the earl of essex was gone they had to look for someone else um this time they'd been through a number of lord deputies they've been through many of their most famous military men all about either defeat death or disgrace but in 1600 the quran got it right the crown picked the right guy they picked uh lord deputy mount joy charles blunt and then that they got the right guy they got a guy who did not underestimate the irish he saw the irish for what they were and what they'd become and did not look with the blinkered eyes of fighting barbarians or fighting primitives he saw what had happened and he made changes and it took it it took a while for them to learn but once they got the right guy the ties started the turn now when blunt arrived tyrone was actually in munster tyrone marched the length of ireland and was in the uh at conceal actually and when uh mount joy arrived at the start of 1600 taran turned about face and marched at a spectacular pace we're talking like sometimes 30 35 miles a day which is the english we're lucky to do 10 that's how mobile the irish could be but when he marched north north back for ulster mount joy saw for what it was tyrone couldn't leave he saw that for tyrone ulster was his center of gravity that was the most important thing and straight away my journey that tyrone was fighting this war in ireland but it was the north it was ulster that was the most important to him whether it's capital nungan and he knew that if he could manipulate that in military terms center of gravity he could get the initiative and that's what precisely what my joy did my joy finally sent an expedition under henry docker to derry on the foil and though this is four thousand troops this is as big as the army that was at the yellow ford and though they couldn't move out of their bases because they didn't have local guides and what it did do initially was it made tyrone look behind him which he'd never had to do before he'd operate with impunity almost moving south and moving into comet what this did it acted like i was a bridle and it forced them to withdraw troops from the south that everyone had sent the irish lords in munster and in the midlands and they forced to pull them back to contain the foil and as soon as he started doing that he started to lose control of his irish allies one of the things that tyrone could make people do things is because if you send a thousand troops with your captains all their strength is based on what you sent them so they have to do what you say but once that pulls away then they start to get a wee bit more you know following their own orders but also what mojo did was he started to see what what tyron had done he saw the benefits of the gunpowder revolution of the the pike in the shot but their mobility was key always with mobility they could move faster they could react quicker and so my joy started to change his troops to copy tyrone's reforms this is one of the great myths that had been built up over years that tyrone copied the english actually by 1600 was the english that copied tyrone's reforms and started their troops were worrying armor so they started to get rid of armor they started to increase the number of firearms as opposed to pike they also started to reduce the number of carried muskets muskets were big heavy firearms that is that grit range and were very powerful but they were much heavier than the lighter calibers and they were slower to fire so they started to reduce those and the english officers started to have formations and infantry companies that looked quite like the irish both in arms and equipment with the number of pike in the number of shot and they started to introduce swordsmen as well like oh but tyrone had uh introduced um this thing called targeteers which is like light swordsman that would act almost like close protection to this shot so that no one knew they could go out and skirmish but you had guys with swords nearby that would finish off anyone that came anywhere near you they copied that as well and so what they started and they started to change the way the uh english troops were equipped as well with the the supplies they carried they started to have where they could carry uh supplies in their own rucksacks like o'neill's men did so they could operate free from supply wagons so again they had an operational mobility that certainly by 1601 you had reports coming from the english that says though while we're not quite as fast as tyrone's man if the spanish ever came we would have the same advantage over the spanish that is the continental force as the irish have over us so my joy was willing to learn and he saw his adversary for what they were which was a flexible well-trained with excellent small unit maneuverability and that's what he copied and while again keeping their advantages of economy and navy and supply and the ability to concentrate for it so it was the english learning of mount joy should we say and the officers with him being willing to learn from the irish reforms and so then he starts to make progress then like i say you know he landed the force in the foil forcing o'neill to withdraw his own troops back to ulster to contain that that allowed muncher to then work on the midlands and when he started working through the midlands and cut off those lines of supply from the north into monster then you saw the monster lords get weakened and then when the monster lords are getting weakened their position starts to collapse all in the meantime my jar starts moving north and the ulcer and starts chipping away and initially moves up in 1600 and his plan was initially to take arma but he has a hard time to say the least um he makes his way north in may but that's more of a a faint deal out of the landings in the foil but he comes back in september and there's just this bloody slogging match in the maury pass where neal tries to keep him out and he tries to get in and eventually mount your actually withdrawal he batters his newly built army the pieces on o'neill's defenses in the mori pass but only again his men are suffering as well and he's forced to fall back then mount jury actually goes through the empty pass and by the winter of uh 1600 he's made this campaign for it mount norris which is a springboard for the next year and you start to see a confidence in the english as they start to the monster our position in monster the irish position of monster is pretty much neutralized over the space of a year and with dokkara showing strength and the foil what he does he actually draws irish lowers to remember i mentioned there about high strength drew loyally and people didn't want to be on the losing side so all of a sudden they were looking strong there then you have defections of people like mel garv o'donnell or up interconnell and what that does is it allows gives local knowledge and allows those four thousand troops to operate effectively that starts to eat away at red hue donald's position interconnell you have arthur chichester who's uh aggressively moving out of carrick fergus and you have my joy moving up uh from nuri and that springboard at mount norris and by 1601 in the summer of that you've got my joy on the blackwater challenging uh the the breakthrough dungannon tyrone holds him on the blackwater line after the very bloody fight in the side lakes but he does actually hold him on the black water line but then in september the spanish long awaited the spanish finally arrive but it couldn't be in a worse place it's in conceal it's in the other end of the island and lands with three and a half thousand men my joy obviously is forced to withdraw back which actually gives o'neill some breathing space because he's already under pressure but that breathing space allows him to uh recover from the pressure he was under during this summer of 1601 as my joy consolidates everything he can to contain the spanish he even says it himself he might join bets at all on conceal and he says that if we win here iron desires if they win here iron is theirs this is it this is where it boils down to conceal and he successfully bottles at the spanish shop at conceal and the spaniard said he'll need now's your time you have to move to support us initially he tries the old methods he tries people have said well why did he take so much time because it's september when the spanish first arrived and it's not till uh much in here in november that uh it's not until uh november when tyrone actually makes it down what he does is tyrone tries to spoil or burn parts of the peel he tries to destroy things it worked in the past where uh an english expedition had moved out he'd moved troops in behind them burned a lot behind them and then they're forced to come back to protect the peel that wasn't working with my joint margin i knew that was a diversion yes there was farms getting burnt on the peel there was castles getting burnt in the field but he knew exactly what that was that if he pulled back the defend that was playing in the there are times like i said everything was bad and concealed so eventually o'neill and o'donnell made up in monster and their final four stands at around uh five and a half thousand troops and then you have three and a half thousand three thousand spanish and conceal they're surrounded by maybe ten thousand uh english troops and uh uh siege trenches around conceal like this is an appalling winter it's been raining it's freezing men are dying and their dozens every night in the trenches it's just squalid awful conditions and people said well why didn't donate wait why didn't he just buy at his time why indeed was it pressure from the spanish was it o'donnell wanted the attack who really knows it's there's just not enough evidence to say well why didn't he win but he didn't win and he made his move on [Music] christmas eve uh 1601 tyrone instead of fighting the ways he had done with these and it's not guerrilla warfare it's small units it's called mixed war where you have large units and small-scale emission units and the flexibility to move and you know and so that whenever the english country attacked they could uh maneuver away but still keep their form it was a very sophisticated way of fighting and it wasn't guerrilla warfare at all never never called a guerrilla warfare [Music] but instead he forms his troops into these large pakistans two thousand two and a half thousand men pakistan's big central pike block surrounded by the shot some people would call them tercios or it's not the precise way i call them but they had large masses of troops and this is not the way the irish fought they'd never fought this way this this was a continental way of fighting and so they moved on the english position and they think from the evidence that chooses the plan was that tyrone was to move in on the english siege lines and at the same time as he attacked the spanish would attack but as he moved forward they were spotted in the darkness which the truth was inevitable people talk about this nonsense story but of whiskey bottles you use the bribe uh the the plan was given away for a whiskey bottle brown this is all nonsense this is thousands of troops moving with lit matches there's like a short match cord that smoldered on the end it was how the guns were fired you have thousands of these moving through the gloom of the darkness you see it you smell it so yeah it was almost inevitable that that they would be spotted um and as they moved up the english sent their regiments to face tyrone but tyrone didn't see the spanish move out so from his initial position he fell back to a defensive position further back and conceal that had like a bog and a stream at front and initially this those skirmishes skirmishing line was fought all along this which checked the english advance but then the english found a gap on the irish right flank and that's where their cavalry moved and as that cavalry supported by some enemy champion moved around to the irish right they forced the irish cavalry back and one of the stories is as the irish cavalry retreated which were never meant the irish cavalry just weren't meant for shock no straight-up fighting that way no cavalry if it came to a fight between english cover and irish cavalry irish cavalry were gone loose they just weren't trained for that sort of direct battle fighting and as the irish cavalry retreated they retreated through tyrone's big block of troops and as they tour as they retreated through this got disrupted and disorganized and the english were quick to spot this and straight away the english cavity were in that disorganization and as soon as they weren't into that formation if you imagine just a big crowd of 2 000 people are tightly packed it just disintegrated as that disintegrated it just completely collapsed and that's when the route began they should have never been formed like that tyrone's troops weren't trained to fight like that they'd never fought like that not in those big formations even the amount of troops the style of the troops only the way if you imagine for every 100 men tyrone deployed uh maybe 20 carried a pike in 80 carried a firearm that was the kind of force you just could not deploy a force like that so either there's too many shot or else then shot were given pike it just couldn't work they just weren't trained that way and it should have been obvious that way but that's the way it turned out and when the collapse happens there's nothing more contagious on a battlefield and panic the units collapsed and the right began and then the our irish were actually lucky that the english cavalry were so starved that they could only pursue a short distance because they'd said that if the irish had waited a week there wouldn't have been a a horse that was fit for service but the age of our irish history it's just one of those things and of course there was bad luck one of the most important things in battle of the early modern period probably any period is luck and luck was just against the arcs that day as luck was against the english at the yellow forward with a stray shot that took out bagnall and the exploding gunpowder luck was against the irish conceal and they reckon upwards of a thousand troops a thousand of o'neill's most experienced men were killed at conceal and then the next day the victim decision was taken that tyrone would withdraw his army north you just can't fight as people said well he still had thousands left so you just you cannot fight you can't redeploy a beaten army and again under that retreat north they were hired by by irish lords that had supported them on the way south all of a sudden no one wants to be in the wrong side and there's no english troops on the way north because all the english troops are concentrated conceal and they reckon that twice as many troops were lost by touring on the retreat north that were killed on a battle so possibly 3 000 were lost in the overall operation and only couldn't take those sort of losses that's to be remembered the crown lost far more the crown lost upwards of six thousand men in the trenches around conceal but they could take it they could replace those losses it cost money and it cost lives but they could take it tyrone couldn't but more importantly his reputation was gone reputation for invincibility and effectiveness was everything loyalty was predicated on it and as soon as that was gone ally started to fall away and then ultimately what you see this is the break-in of irish military power and once that's gone once that that that support is gone then it's basically an unstoppable slide now though i said it's an unstoppable slide after the as the military part of toronto was broke at conceal the war wasn't gone wasn't finished not by a long shot what manchur did to follow that up was that he continued moving into ulster but what he did was he needed to run in person he needed the person to run and to do that he used scorched earth tactics what then when i say scorched our tactics what he did he cut down corn burned fields where he could burned houses killed many people with civilians um as much as possible not for the sake of destruction that wasn't his purpose my joy wasn't like that some of his officers were but my joy wasn't some of us uh my choice officers were incredibly brutal people like arthur chichester and belfast have an appalling reputation and rightly so for attacking and slaughtering civilians but my joy wasn't about that mount joy wanted tyrone betrayed and the only way he could get in his eyes to see tarun betrayed was to put pressure on his allies and that at that pressure we brought about by destroying the crops by destroying everything and then forcing someone to betray tyrone he also and to do that they allow his troops to operate effectively he started to build small garrisons within mutually supporting distance where they could operate you know for a couple of days it was around it around these forts places like otter places like uh my joyous fort uh on loch ness and that gave them the kind of flexibility the kind of speed that would allow them to move quick quickly or try to move as quickly as the irish now the scorched our tactics were brutal but they couldn't get anyone to betray tyrone tyrone by 1602 uh the summer of 1602 my joy was in dungannon and the garland was a shell it was destroyed and everyone was hiding out in glencon king forest they still couldn't get anyone to betray tyrone but what actually the worst thing for the people in ulster wasn't just that the english were deploying these scorched earth tactics they were deployed at the same time as there was an agricultural collapse in ulcer years and years of warfare had meant that there was constantly declining returns on agriculture and the more the demands were put on agriculture to provide for the irish war effort the more pressure was put on it and then by the time the scorched earth tactics start to kick in you see this agricultural collapse that develops in the form of famine like we always say that it was um my joy the creative development it wasn't migrating the creative development my joy tried to create farming but when he initially starts that plan they expected to have tick hold in four months five months six months but by the time he actually crosses over the black water in the dungannon where he hadn't been but when he gets dungan he finds a landscape already waste and he did he he didn't do that because he wasn't there he was already fighting that just they've picked a war on the overall agricultural economy just collapsed everything and though it was felt hardest and worst in uh tyrone uh and in ulster where uh after the war to everyone estimated there was something like 60 he said 60 000 people died uh in toronto and uh ulster the famine actually spread into the south and by 1604 was island-wide so the famine was coming because of the war but it was just worse than also because that's where the seat of the war was you're looking at though my joy's doing these scorch dark tactics destroying the crops destroying the houses killing civilians it's not him that causes the famine the famine when he he crosses the blackwater and uh dungan he finds alan already ravaged and he finds out that tyrone actually has his army in for mana because they've had to move away they can't survive in tournaments already the agricultural collapse has forced them to move and we see that though the famine is worst in ulster it spreads throughout 1603 and by 1604 the famine is island wide and the effects of it are the it creates these uh we have an appalling nard of an imagery of people lying dead on buried along the road to tomb 4000 and people with like their mouths die green trying to eat anything they can get their hands on so we have this agricultural collapse we have scorched earth what i haven't touched on actually was they said but why couldn't they just buy in goods one of the tactics that my joy also used was monetary debasement is they they realized that over the course of the war is that the irish had actually got in their hands all the gold by trade because you've got to think is that well if tyrone is busy controlling all the landscape or the countryside that's the agricultural world and so even for merchants and say galway and all the rest to buy have to buy this they've got to buy this of gold and this gold goes to the irish and the reports by 1600 of the irish as the eyes of the english column the irish rebels have all the gold of ireland and they use that money to buy imports so what they do is they can't they're not they're not in a position to stop them raising the revenue but the so what they decide to do and it's a novel approach to say the least is they pull the revenue out and so the english debates the money not as they replace the silver and gold coins for uh coinage that has been had base metals put in on copper coins and it becomes the 10 the the coinage for ireland uh that can be swapped at exchanges when it goes to england but what it does is it draws all the gold and all the silver that's acceptable in foreign markets out of ireland so therefore totally destroying the irish's ability to buy imports from foreign markets but more importantly and this is what work comes into in the cases of famine is that neither all this dubious coinage is in circulation they can't buy in or import foods because it's not the money that's available isn't acceptable so all these things tie in to create this appalling position and that's where you have the the this famine so the famine is felt by the english as well but they can bring food in it's felt more so far more by far more so by the irish he can't do anything he can't import anything and so that's why it is there's so many die by 1603 tyrone is a fugitive by this stage uh so many of his allied lords have been forced to submit but he's still elusive they still the english can't get a hold of them but again like i said the famine is roman in the north uh by this stage red hue donald who had left after conceal has died uh only just is put in the position where he has no choice he had tried to submit earlier but the queen wouldn't allow it we wouldn't allow it was i is he losing everything uh or and she wouldn't allow him to keep the title of her but england doesn't have limitless resources england the english state itself is to the point of its limited performance people always think that there's uh this war of like the weak and the strong will yes england was stronger but it wasn't limitlessly strong it had its own limits and it was at the boundaries of uh early modern states ability to perform and they were at the point they they spent so much money we're talking like this ward cost two million pounds this is a massive amount far more than any uh wars in the continent that cost them and uh they'd already said that if they're forced to raise more taxes in england to pay for this war they could have revolt in england and that is the last thing that the english wanted the elizabeth senior uh advisors people like sir robert cecil had said this needs to get done they said they might join and they'd also send a letter quite clearly not with elizabeth's consent saying that you get whatever piece you can from tyrone and then we'll smooth it out with the queen they wanted peace because they they couldn't continue this on any more than uh term could suffer it so tyrone eventually uh through negotiation goes to melophone but he doesn't just wrap on the door and throw himself at my joy there's negotiations o'neill still knows that he has political strength he even sends a letter saying please accept my submission don't force me to go to europe and that's the last thing they need is this loose cannon of an irish lord with allies in the spanish court going to the continent because who knows what can happen there so over a course of several days of negotiating they do negotiate this almost pantomime submission but keeping in it's secret from tyrone that queen elizabeth had died a few days before because they know just the week before tyrone could always be accused of being a rebel to elizabeth but now that elizabeth had died and it looked that james the sixth of scotland would become james the first of england who tyrone would never rebelled against and could not be accused of being a traitor and in fact had received help from scotland throughout the war they had to get this submission done and so ultimately with certain impingement certain limitations tyrone submission pantomime as it is in some ways is acceptable where he gets essentially most of his lands back um within the space of a couple of months is literally goes with majority england and is hunting with the new king because it all it needed the war needed the end both politically and just financially it just had to finish and if that meant essentially letting tyron off was a no harm no foul well then so be it because there's idealism um there's there's there's rail politic and that's exactly what was happening here this is what needed the home for the for uh the english and that's exactly what happened now this wasn't the war that was just between the irish lords and the the english crime as i said they s the spanish crown under philip ii and then later philip iii was offering military support financial support and political support and obviously that military support didn't come until the military land and conceal in 1601 but he did send money and did send arms did send equipment um in several phases throughout the war i did send advisers and more importantly provided essentially uh political uh clout the to the irish cause but one also unseen link is uh from scotland it's i don't think it's in any small matter to say that this war couldn't be fought by the irish it would have been for scottish links now uh the the scottish monarch was james vi and he constantly turned a blind eye to arms trades tyrone got a huge amount if not most of his arms from buying from scottish merchants in glasgow and these armed shipments both in equipment weapons and gunpowder were getting shipped from glasgow and landing in places like strangford or along the north coast where they'll be brought down by uh james mcsorley mcdonald at the supply depots and around dungan and lockworker and different strategic places where the equipment can be moved out into the field and throughout the war there is lots of letters coming from edinburgh from elizabeth the first envoy to james the sixth sen will you please do something about this gun running and james says there's a couple of decrees banning it saying oh this is unlawful but no efforts are taken to stop this arms trade which is just i suppose good business is where you find it that just the money that as long as the money keeps up the arms keep flowing and james turns repeatedly turns a blind eye to the amounts of uh equipment and the television without the spot the scottish arms uh tyrone would have been hard pushed to maintain the war the way he did and that keeps up right up until 1602 again a confluence of of of things where you have the defeat of irish arms and concealed in 1601 and tyrone says he will rebuild whether that was all bluster or whether he had the intention to rebuild what actually happens is that when james finds out that he will succeed elizabeth first whenever she dies that deal is made with some of uh elizabeth's senior advisors as soon as that happens he cuts the arms off then he moves against the merchants in glasgow then there's without the arms to rebuild tyrone can't rebuild there's not that that line of supplies cut off instantly because james is getting the crown and so why would he be literally fighting against his own would-be inheritance so that's cut off but and and throne has nothing to rebuild he gets a few arm shipments from uh spain after that but nothing really that will change the the tide of the way the war is going but the scottish him for the scottish impact on how the wars fought and um it's not troops from scotland people always said oh well there's all scottish merchants tyrone didn't really like using scottish merchants because they were uh he regarded they were um ill-disciplined and they didn't fight the way in the modern methods that he were now using they still use bows and things like that so it wasn't scottish red shank mercenaries it was scottish arms and scottish merchants many of whom were actually based in dungan and we have accounts of them uh operating out of dungeon they'll also have accounts of scottish merchants operating the spies for english advisors um but i suppose that's work for you um but yeah that that scottish link would have been that would have been here at dungannon up until the point where occur james's sixth turn to turn the supplies off

Channel: Hill of The O'Neill and Ranfurly House

Views: 1,134

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Id: mMLN7XY5dds

Length: 55min 46sec (3346 seconds)

Published: Fri May 13 2022