The varying fortunes of battle
1595-1601: CLONTIBRET TO KINSALE
The Earl of Essex: disastrous Irish campaign led to his execution
THE BATTLE OF CLONTIBRET
In early 1595, Hugh O'Neill destroyed the English fort at the Blackwater and wasted villages within his own territory around Dungannon so that the English could not take them. His men plundered the edges of the Pale, while on the other side of the country Red Hugh O'Donnell pushed into Connaught.
O'Neill's first major victory came in June at Clontibret in Monaghan, where he ambushed a column, led by Henry Bagenal, that had been sent to support a vulnerable garrison. Exhausted and forced to melt down Bagenal's pewter crockery to fashion ammunition, the English waited until dawn and possible slaughter. But O'Neill had withdrawn his troops overnight.
He had also escaped death in dramatic fashion. Spotting O'Neill directing affairs from a height, an English knight had charged at the Earl of Tyrone. Clashing lances, the men fell to the ground and wrestled. As the knight raised his arm to strike, a Gaelic commander sliced it off with a sword and Hugh scrambled away from the closest call he would have on the battlefield.
A TRUCE
With Ulster almost completely closed off a truce was agreed in January 1596. It seems that the ageing Elizabeth I was concerned by a number of factors, including corruption then rife within her army and the fear that her great rival, Spain, might get involved.
She was right to worry. The lords finally succeeded in petitioning King Philip II, telling him it would be a religious battle that would "win for Christ an infinite number of souls, snatching them from the jaws of hell"".
But the Spanish involvement had disastrous consequences. In October, an armada of 81 ships was overwhelmed by a storm and broken up with the loss of 2,000 Spanish. The following year, an even greater fleet of 136 ships and 12,600 men was also thwarted by the weather. Philip II's patience finally ran dry - soon followed by his health. He died in 1598.
BATTLE OF YELLOW FORD
The Gaelic lords enjoyed military successes, despite paranoia within the ranks. As the English made attempts to win over rival noblemen in Connaught at one point Hugh O'Neill even had Hugh Maguire arrested.
In August 1598, the lords inflicted what would be remembered as the greatest defeat upon the English in Ireland. Attempting to support the rebuilt, but vulnerable, fort on the Blackwater in Armagh, a force led by Henry Bagenal was ambushed by O'Neill and O'Donnell.
Bagenal had 300 men on horseback and 4,000 infantry as they approached the fort. From the trees, they found themselves under fire from hidden ranks of soldiers. Pelted by bullets and spears, and slowed by heavy guns being drawn by bullocks, they forced onwards through boggy land and into a devastating trap set by Hugh O'Neill, who had prepared a mile-long trench filled with thorn bushes.
At Yellow Ford, the fracturing ranks of the English broke into confusion when a loose match ignited the gun-powder store. At the sight of the explosion, the Irish emerged and openly attacked. Over 800 English died, 400 were wounded and 300 deserted to the rebels.
Bagenal was among the dead.
ELIZABETH REACTS
Incensed, Elizabeth I sent an eager Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex to Ireland, with a greater army and a political will to solve this problem at all costs.
Arriving in Ireland in 1599, however, he engaged in wasteful operations and fruitless discussions with southern lords. His thinly-spread troops suffered a heavy defeat in Wicklow, while Red Hugh O'Donnell took the president of Connaught's severed head as a prize.
A despairing Elizabeth ordered Essex to Ulster and a confrontation with O'Neill. The two men met in September 1589, but not in battle. Instead they negotiated in the River Gkyde near Dundalk. A six-week truce was agreed, yet O'Neill had made no concessions.
This enraged Elizabeth, and so concerned was Essex at the effect it was having on his personal reputation that he fled his post and returned to London in an escapade that would end with his head in a basket.
MOUNTJOY'S CAMPAIGN
In January 1600, Hugh O'Neill had marched as far as Cork, where Hugh Maguire was ambushed and killed. Meanwhile, the earls promised the new Spanish king, Philip III, five months of battle until his troops arrived. O'Neill sent his son Henry to Spain as a demonstration of loyalty.
But the lords now had a foe who would prove so ruthless that even Elizabeth I found his tactics distasteful. The new lord deputy was Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, a sickly man who was nevertheless brave and fortunate in battle. During one engagement, he would receive a spear to the forehead yet survive.
He began a war of attrition, starving out the Gaelic troops by burning their food stores during winter, and driving Ulster towards a terrible famine. In the meantime, Sir Henry Docwra landed at Derry with 4,000 infantry and 200 soldiers, and although hemmed in by Red Hugh O'Donnell, the English consolidated their position. Crucially, when O'Donnell journeyed south at one point, his brother-in-law and rival Niall Garbh - who had been left in command - joined Docwra and led English troops to capture Lifford.
From Carrickfergus, Sir Arthur Chichester waged a campaign against Hugh O'Neill, who now found himself struggling on two fronts. There were still opportunities to score victories, but when O'Neill retreated from Moyry Pass when in a position to inflict a defeat on Mountjoy's troops in October 1600, he appeared to have erred.
The English, with renewed vigour, carried out a savage campaign in the north. Further south the president of Munster, Sir George Carew, won back territory through war and submission. Despite occasional successes, the lords were looking fragile.
THE BATTLE OF KINSALE
The decisive moment came in 1601, when a Spanish fleet brought 3,500 men to Kinsale, Co Cork. They were mutinous and unhappy to be in Ireland as the winter approached, and they were low in number as one of the ships had failed to land. But most obviously, they had landed 300 miles away from the lords they had set out to help.
Red Hugh led a force which plundered its way south and slipped through the net set by George Carew. It was eventually joined by Hugh O'Neill whose 3,000-strong army ravaged the English supply lines along the way. At Kinsale, the Spanish were under siege from the English who were, in turn, besieged by the Irish. For a time it looked desperate for Mountjoy and his 7,000 men, who entered December suffering heavy losses from starvation and disease.
Hugh O'Neill, it seems, wished to wait and suffocate Mountjoy's army. But his colleagues, increasingly unnerved at being absent from their territory for so long, and also under pressure from the Spanish to break the siege, persuaded him to attack.
By the Gregorian calendar used by the Irish, it was in the early hours of Christmas Eve, 1601, when the Gaelic forces moved in on the English. However, while Hugh O'Neill reached his position safely, the rearguard led by Red Hugh became lost in the early morning mist.
O'Neill attacked in the open, sending cavalry at the English, but the horsemen broke up early and piled back upon their own infantry. A bag of gunpowder exploded among his men, causing them to scatter in confusion. By the time Red Hugh's men finally arrived, the fight was already lost.
About 1,200 confederate soldiers were killed in the battle, most of them O'Neill's. He lost 14 captains and his military capacity was permanently hobbled. The English losses, meanwhile, numbered less than a dozen.
The Spanish, who had prepared to hand over the town to the victorious Irish, heard the English victory salute, retreated to their ships and sued for peace.
SHANE HEGARTY
