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King ponders plantation

APRIL 1608: THE REVOLT OF SIR CAHIR O'DOHERTY: 'The undutiful departure of the Earls of Tirone, Tirconnell, and McGwyre offers good occasion for a plantation," an Irish Crown official observed to Lord Salisbury. Chichester quickly grasped the opportunity presented, though he knew of no plan to seize or poison O'Neill and thought "it were strange that he should quit an Earldom, and so large and beneficial a territory for smoke and castles in the air". The Lord Deputy wrote to James I just after the Flight:

"If His Majesty will, during their absence, assume the countries into his possession, divide the lands amongst the inhabitants . . . and will bestow the rest upon servitors and men of worth here, and withal bring in colonies of civil people of England and Scotland . . . the country will ever after be happily settled." There was no time like the present, for "the whole realm, and especially the fugitive countries, are more utterly depopulated and poor than ever before for many hundred years".

Inheriting an immense debt from Elizabeth's Irish wars, James found much to attract him in his Lord Deputy's proposal. However, England was formally at peace with Spain and to confiscate lands simply for leaving them, the King reflected, "might blemish the reputation of that friendship which ought to be mutually observed between us and other princes". Then he changed his mind. James decided that the Earls were "base-born contemptible creatures" and allowed Davies to have them "attainted by outlawry" on the charge that they were levying war against the King. In December 1607 lands of the departed lords were formally confiscated and preparations for a plantation began. Events the following spring were greatly to extend the scope of the project.

Sir Cahir O'Doherty, Lord of Inishowen, had been foreman of the grand jury that had found a true bill of treason against the Earls. As a 15-year-old O'Doherty had joined the Crown forces at Derry in 1600 and had received great praise from Sir Henry Docwra who wrote that he had been "with me, alighted when I did, kept me company in the greatest heat of the fight, behaved himself bravely, and with a great deal of love and affection: so much so, that I recommended him at my next meeting with Lord Deputy Mountjoy, for the honour of a knighthood, which was accordingly conferred on him".

Now O'Doherty fell out with Sir George Paulet, who had replaced Docwra as governor of Derry in 1607. Possessing none of his predecessor's diplomatic finesse, Paulet was contemptuous of the native Irish and punched O'Doherty in the face. O'Doherty, the Four Masters record, "would rather have suffered death than live to brook such an insult and dishonour". O'Doherty seized the fort of Culmore on the shores of Lough Foyle and the following night, April 19th, 1608, attacked Derry.

The garrison was quickly overwhelmed and as dawn broke the surviving townspeople barricaded themselves in Bishop Montgomery's house and adjacent dwellings. But as John Baker, a surviving defender, records: "destitute of victuals and munition, and seeing a piece brought by the enemy from Culmore, and ready mounted to batter the said houses, and being out of all hope of relief at that time and wearied with lamentable outcry of women and children, after much parley and messages to and fro, yielded the said houses".

The bishop's wife, Susan Montgomery, was held prisoner for a time and her husband's library of 300 books was destroyed as Derry was set aflame. Paulet fell dead in the fighting, Strabane was burned soon after and the revolt threatened to spread across the province as factions of O'Cahans and O'Hanlons came out in rebellion and O'Doherty invaded mid-Ulster.

From Coleraine Sir Thomas Phillips wrote a frantic appeal for help, concluding with the words "haist, haist, haist". Sir Richard Wingfield, the King's Marshal, counter-attacked and recovered the burnt shell of Derry; and on July 5 th Sir Cahir was killed at the Rock of Doon, near Kilmacrenan. Meanwhile, Chichester put down the O'Hanlons, hanging many he captured, and moved from Mountnorris to Dungannon, executing dozens more by hanging, "a death which they contemn more, he thinks, than any other nation living; they are generally so stupid by nature, or so tough or disposed by their priests, that they show no remorse of conscience, or fear of death". The last O'Cahan rebels were pursued into the woods of Glenconkeyne, where, Chichester reported, "the wild inhabitants wondered as much to see the King's Deputy, as the ghosts in Virgil wondered to see Aeneas alive in Hell".

Notwithstanding Sir Cahir's death, the revolt spluttered on. Sir Oliver Lambert besieged Doe castle, "the strongest hold in all the province which endured 100 blows of the demi-cannon before it yielded". Shane MacManus Óg O'Donnell retreated to the islands, pursued by Sir Henry Folliot, governor of Ballyshannon, with a hundred men and five vessels. Folliot took the castle on Tory Island by treachery, cutting down the warders after promising them their lives. The rebellion concluded when Marshal Wingfield crossed the mountains to Glenveagh, where the O'Gallaghers made a last but futile stand in their island castle.

The English were getting to know the province they had conquered from end to end, parts of which Chichester admitted had been only recently as inaccessible as "the kingdom of China". The highlands from Errigal to Muckish and Glenveagh repelled the Lord Deputy, being "one of the most barren, uncouth, and desolate countries that could be seen, fit only to confine rebels and ill spirits into". This distaste, however, did not prevent Chichester from seeking and obtaining a grant of O'Doherty's lordship of Inishowen for himself almost immediately afterwards.