Soldier, strategist, conspirator
By Shane Hegarty.
In the bloody, complex but crucial period that is 16th century Ireland, Hugh O'Neill is often placed close to the centre. Between English and Irish, Catholic and Protestant, myth and reality, brutality and honour.
Yet, so much about him is unknown. Historical accounts are few, and the neutrality of those available are suspect. The four centuries since his death have provided plenty of time for historians to wrangle over the actions, details and consequences of his life. In attempting to write the biography, The Great O'Neill, Sean O'Faolain actually admitted "almost total defeat", before adding both a plea for clemency and a warning to the reader: "No intimate details of this great man's character have come down to us, not even an absolutely authenticated portrait, or an intimate letter to a friend: we have nothing to go on except his behaviour. Since his mind was reticent and conspiratorial the reader must constantly be on his guard in interpreting his behaviour. The traditional picture of the patriot O'Neill, locked into the Gaelic world, eager to assault England, is not supported by the facts and must be acknowledged a complete fantasy. He was by no means representative of the old Gaelic world and had, at most, only an ambiguous sympathy with what he found himself so ironically obliged to defend with obstinacy."
THE O'NEILLS
Hugh O'Neill was born in Dungannon in 1550, into a family by then riven by feuding and drowning in blood. He was the son of Matthew O'Neill, who was in line to succeed his father Conn Bacach as The O'Neill. The circumstances of the succession, however, drove a wedge between the family. Matthew had been brought up in Dundalk as a Kelly, the son of a blacksmith's widow who had had a brief sexual liaison with Conn Bacach. When he reached adulthood, Matthew was "named" as Conn's son and accepted by the chieftain. However, it also meant that Matthew was now his eldest son, with his illegitimacy being no barrier to becoming heir.
Conn Bacach's son, Shane O'Neill, was utterly aggrieved by this usurping of his place in the chain and the resulting struggle for power shaped Hugh O'Neill's early life. Known as Shane the Proud, despite a reputation for cowardice in battle, he was a ruthless and violent man, utterly merciless to his enemies. In 1559, he rebelled against his father and drove the elderly man from Ulster. He also sent agents to murder his half-brother (and Hugh's father) Matthew and began a campaign against neighbouring families and the English, gaining vast amounts of Ulster as other chieftains submitted to his power.
With the support of Scottish troops, he terrorised enemies. Perhaps his most brutal act was the capture of Calvagh O'Donnell, who as lord of Tir Connell controlled north-west Ulster. Betrayed by his wife (who had been charmed by Shane) Calvagh was captured, imprisoned and subjected to unimaginable abuse at the hands of his captor. For almost three years he was kept shackled from his ankles to his neck in such a way that he could neither stand nor sit. When eventually released, he broke down upon reaching the Pale, saying that the irons had been "so sore that the very blood did run down on every side of mine irons, insomuch that I did wish after death a thousand times".
In the meantime, however, a deal was reached between Shane O'Neill and Elizabeth I. In the first days of 1562, Shane caused much excitement when he arrived at the English court with a coterie of wild warriors and then, to the bemusement of onlookers, wailed his way through a speech in Gaelic. Elizabeth attempted to solve the question of the O'Neill lineage by summoning Shane's rival, Brian O'Neill (son of Matthew and brother of Hugh) to the court. But Brian was murdered en route.
So, Shane O'Neill was granted power - although he was made "captain", not Earl of Tyrone, the title first given to his father. Central of the deal was Shane's agreement to keep the peace with his neighbours, although he proved utterly unable to keep his end of the bargain and instead waged a campaign of plunder and destruction against several families including the Maguires and O'Donnells. Eventually fleeing east after his army was finally butchered in 1567, Shane O'Neill looked for help from old enemies the MacDonnells, only to meet his end when he was hacked to death following an argument over dinner. His head was pickled and sent to Dublin Castle, where it could still be found shrivelling on a pike four years later.
HUGH O'NEILL'S LIFE
Shane's deal with the crown also proved a defining moment for his nephew Hugh, as it allowed the nine-year-old to be taken into the protection of the crown. He was fostered by the family of an English settler, Giles Hovenden, who farmed near Balgriffin, Co Dublin, and it was the beginning of a journey towards the point where Elizabeth I could eventually describe him as a "creature of our own".
In fact, it would allow Hugh to develop a complex web of allegiances and loyalties on both sides. By 1568, he had been named Baron of Dungannon, the town in which he chose to base himself despite the continuing enmity of Shane O'Neill's sons and the fact that the position of The O'Neill - which Hugh coveted and believed was his by right - was now held by his cousin Turlough Luineach O'Neill. In the meantime he began to develop valuable links with traditional enemies of the family, marrying the first of four wives, Siobhán, a daughter of chieftain Hugh O'Donnell. Later, the heir to the O'Donnell chiefdom, Red Hugh, would in turn become Hugh O'Neill's son-in-law.
Yet, during the 1570s Hugh also fought alongside the Earl of Essex, a particularly nasty and bloodthirsty Englishman who had set out to colonise Ulster. And in 1580, he was involved in the suppression of the Desmond Rebellion in Munster and in 1585 was made second Earl of Tyrone.
However, his ambition towards becoming the O'Neill had been growing. In 1579, there was a brief entente with Turlough Luineach. He sent Siobhán O'Donnell home and instead prepared to marry one of Turlough's daughters, while he also attained the position of tánaiste. However, the deal soon fell apart. The uncertainties of the O'Neill succession struggle was not helped by Turlough Luineach's alcohol problem, which at one point put him into such a deep coma that he was thought dead until he woke up 24 hours later, presumably with quite a headache.
Despite the wavering backing of the English crown, and the complicated, delicate diplomacy of the day, O'Neill gained control of larger tracts of Ulster while his military capacity grew. Quite when he formed the idea of rebelling against the English is uncertain, but while he may have waited until Red Hugh O'Donnell eventually rebelled against the English, he appears to have been planning to strike for many years previously. Certainly, he had developed an impressive knack of being on two sides at the one time. While Spanish Armada survivors were hunted down and killed by the English after they foundered onto the Donegal shore in 1588, there is evidence that Hugh both sent a party to kill some of the fugitives, while also personally sheltering others. He certainly used survivors to train his personal army.
After being defeated on the battlefield that same year by Turlough Luineach, he further developed his ties with the O'Donnells. The young Red Hugh O'Donnell was then stuck in Dublin Castle having been kidnapped by the English in 1587. Hugh O'Neill did his utmost to bribe officials into allowing his escape, and when that failed he intervened directly by, it was alleged, providing the silk rope by which Red Hugh could abscond. He took with him Shane's sons Art and Henry, and together they trekked across the bitterly cold Wicklow Mountains where Art died and Red Hugh barely survived, but needed his frostbitten toes amputated.
But once sheltered in Wicklow, O'Neill dispatched someone to come and take him safely to Ulster. And there, the two men met and plotted.
BECOMING "THE O'NEILL"
The feuding between Turlough Luineach, Hugh O'Neill and the MacShanes (sons of Shane O'Neill) was ongoing. Hugh won a grisly victory in 1590 when Shane O'Neill's son, Hugh Gavalach MacShane, was captured by the Maguires and then sold on to him. MacShane was hanged; the accusation at the time was that Hugh himself had tightened the noose.
Red Hugh O'Donnell became central to the eventual usurping of Hugh's rival Turlough Luineach, helping to chip away at his territory until, in 1593, he was under such pressure that he was persuaded to resign as head of the O'Neills. After the resignation, Hugh O'Neill went to the family's crowning stone at the fort of Tullahogue. It may not have been at an especially high place, but it had a panoramic view that stretched into six counties of Ulster, and it was here that a golden slipper was thrown over his head and a white staff presented to him. Hugh O'Neill had finally achieved his ambition of becoming The O'Neill.
DOUBLE DEALING
At this point, Hugh's fracturing relationship with the English could be encapsulated by the personal feud that had begun with marshal of the queen's army, Sir Henry Bagenal, in 1591.
Despite being three decades older than her, Hugh eloped with Bagenal's 20-year-old sister, Mabel. The marshal was disgusted, and wrote: "I can but accurse myself that my blood which is in my father and myself has often been spilled in repressing this rebellious race should now be mingled with so traitorous a stock and kindred."
Hugh O'Neill offered to settle this matter with a swordfight. Bagenal declined.
Although he had had some previous experience, Hugh was still a rotten husband, and Mabel soon found that he preferred to redirect his charm away from her and towards other women. She would eventually separate from him shortly before she died, but the hatred between Hugh O'Neill and Henry Bagenal did not dissipate.
Yet, the two men were required to fight with, rather than against, each other. Hugh O'Neill had been surreptitiously aiding the growing rebellion by the O'Donnell, O'Rourke and Maguire families, but on the battlefield he remained on the side of the English. In a fine example of this, he not only fought in a defeat of Hugh Maguire in Belleek, but the light wound he suffered during the battle proved a timely boon to his wavering standing among the English.
After this victory he was generous to his brother-in-law, Henry Bagenal, crediting him with great deeds in battle, including the slaying of men by his own hand. Bagenal did not reciprocate.
BLOODSHED AT ENNISKILLEN
Hugh O'Neill drifted towards open rebellion, giving an ominous indication at a battle that took place at Enniskillen, in 1594. After many months under siege, Hugh Maguire's castle had finally fallen, only for the victorious English to remain dangerously exposed. So, Maguire's army fought back, with musketeers and pikemen, through thick woods, and joined now by the young chieftain of the O'Donnells, Red Hugh.
An English relief column arrived from Dublin, led by Henry Duke. He halted his men about three miles from the river Arney to rest for the night, but instead they spent those dark hours under continual skirmish from ambushing Irish forces. At dawn, his army made their way towards the castle, haltingly, under regular attack until at mid-morning it reached a ford on the river were it was suddenly set upon by a full-scale attack of about 1,000 enemy soldiers. The battle was vicious, being fought with muskets, pikes, swords and javelins. Gradually the Irish drove the English divisions back in a terrible confusion, until they broke up and scrambled through the ford. Here, horses and men clambered over the bodies of the dead and dying, abandoning their provisions so that the ford ran with the blood and the sodden biscuits that would give this place its name.
Hugh O'Neill's disloyalty was proven in how, when ordered to provide support for Duke's men, he failed to do so. A Gaelic confederacy had been forged by leading families. His brother was heavily involved; Maguire was his son-in-law; and there were reports that Hugh O'Neill himself had given orders to the men besieging Enniskillen castle. He told the English that the Gaelic lords were out of his control. In actual fact he was promoting and directing their rebellion.
HUGH O'NEILL REBELS
By the time he entered the rebellion Hugh O'Neill had painstakingly built an army that could rival that of the English, and he had done it using the training of English officers. Allowed 600 men at a time, he had constantly rotated them so as to train as many as possible and by 1595 he had 6,000 soldiers, with 1,000 on horseback. Recruitment occurred each spring and the men were divided into companies complete with colour parties and drummers. They were armed with modern muskets, and were to earn a reputation for accuracy.
According to a report from the time, in 1594 he had begun stockpiling large amounts of butter and flour in the crannógs of Tyrone. He had also brought in masses of lead, ostensibly for his castle, but in reality for ammunition. Secretly and slowly he had built a formidable army, the greatest yet assembled by a Gaelic lord. Coupled with Hugh's tactical brilliance, the army would inflict defeats on the English that would earn him a great reputation throughout Europe.
Now he finally had the will to use it against his former masters. In February 1595 he destroyed a bridge on the Blackwater that he had helped the Earl of Essex build some 20 years previously. And the next time he shared a battlefield with Henry Bagenal was in May, at Clontibret. But this time, there would be no doubting which side he was on.
