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Flight of the Earls

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File:Flight of Earls (1607).svg
Itinerary of the earls

On 14 September 1607, Irish earls Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, permanently departed Rathmullan in Ireland for mainland Europe, accompanied by their families, household staff, followers and fellow nobility, numbering about ninety people. The earls were patriarchs of the two most powerful clans in Ulster (the O'Neill and O'Donnell clans), and their permanent exile is seen to symbolise the end of Gaelic Irish society.Template:Sfn This event is now known as the Flight of the Earls (Template:Langx).

File:Earls VaticanFresco.png
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, (left) and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell

Both earls fought against the English Crown in the Nine Years' War, which ended with their surrender in 1603. Although the earls managed to retain their lands and titles, hostility towards them from English politicians gradually increased over time. The flight was seemingly a snap decision;<ref>Template:Harvnb, 19th paragraph.</ref> its exact motivation is unclear and is the subject of debate.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> They may have been conspiring against the government, and their flight could have been an attempt to evade arrest or execution.<ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref> The earls intended to reach Habsburg Spain, which had allied with the Irish confederacy during the war, but were turned away by Philip III for fear of violating the recent Treaty of London.Template:Sfnm The refugees spent time in Leuven in the Spanish Netherlands, where many of the passengers left their young children to be educated at the Irish College of St Anthony. The earls arrived in Rome on 29 April 1608 and were granted small pensions by Pope Paul V. Their accommodation in Rome was paltry compared to their estates in Ireland. Tyrconnell died of a fever three months later. Tyrone repeatedly discussed plans to return to Ireland and retake his lands, but he became ill and died in 1616 before doing so. Most of the passengers on the flight never returned to Ireland. The flight was declared as treasonous by James VI and I and the earls' titles were forefeited, which led to the acquisition of the earls' lands as part of the Plantation of Ulster.

NameEdit

The event was first named as a "flight" in an 1868 book by Reverend Charles Patrick Meehan. In Irish, the neutral term Imeacht is usually used i.e. the Departure of the Earls. The term 'Flight' is translated 'Teitheadh na nIarlaí'.

Historians such as Micheline Kerney Walsh have criticised the name "Flight".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Kerney Walsh argued that the Flight was a tactical retreat and not a brash escape from authorities.Template:Sfn Historians disagree to what extent the earls wanted to start a war with Spanish help to re-establish their positions, or whether they accepted exile as the best way of coping with their recent loss of status since the Treaty of Mellifont in 1603. Meehan argued that the earls' tenants wanted a new war: "Withal, the people of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would return with forces to evict the evictors, but the farther they advanced into this agreeable perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear."Template:Sfn

BackgroundEdit

From 1593, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Hugh Roe O'Donnell of Tyrconnell led a confederacy of Irish clans in resistance to the Tudor conquest of Ireland—this conflict is known as the Nine Years' War. After the confederacy's defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, Hugh Roe O'Donnell traveled to Spain to seek support from Philip III. Unsuccessful, he died in Spain from a sudden illness and was succeeded by his younger brother Rory O'Donnell.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

When King James VI and I took the English throne in 1603, he quickly proceeded to issue pardons for the Irish lords and their rebel forces. The O'Neill and O'Donnell clans retained their lands and titles—Rory was made 1st Earl of Tyrconnell—although with much-diminished extent and authority. However, the countryside was laid bare in a campaign of destruction in 1602, which induced famine in 1603. Tyrone was pardoned under the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 and submitted to the crown.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Already reigning as king of Scotland, he had a better understanding of the advantages from working with local chiefs in the Scottish Highlands. However, as in other Irish lordships, the 1603 peace involved O'Neill losing substantial areas of land to his cousins and neighbors, who would be granted freeholds under the English system, instead of the looser arrangements under the former Brehon law system. This was not a new policy but was a well-understood and longstanding practice in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.

On 10 September 1602, the Prince of Tyrconnell had already died, allegedly assassinated, in Spain, and his brother succeeded him as 25th Chieftain of the O'Donnell clan. He was later granted the Earldom of Tyrconnell by King James I on 4 September 1603 and restored to a somewhat diminished scale of territories in Tyrconnell on 10 February 1604.

In 1605, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, began to encroach on the former freedoms of the two Earls and The Maguire, enforcing the new freeholds, especially that granted in North Ulster to the O'Cahan chief. The O'Cahan had formerly been important subjects of the O'Neills and required protection; in turn, Chichester wanted to reduce O'Neill's authority. O'Cahan had also wanted to remove himself from O'Neill's overlordship. An option was to charge O'Neill with treason if he did not comply with the new arrangements. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the same year made it harder for Catholics to appear loyal to both the crown and the papacy. A lengthy legal battle however found in O'Neill's favor.

File:Flight of the Earls - geograph.org.uk - 821328.jpg
A bronze sculpture commemorating the Flight in Rathmullan, County Donegal

By 1607, O'Neill's allies the Maguires and the Earl of Tyrconnell were finding it hard to maintain their prestige on lower incomes. They planned to seek Spanish support before news of the Battle of Gibraltar arrived. When their ship dropped anchor, O'Neill seems to have joined them on impulse. He had three options:

  • Flee with his friends and hope for a reinvasion by Spain
  • Go to London and stay at court until his grievances were redressed
  • Do nothing and live on a reduced income as a large landowner in Ulster.

Fearing arrest, they chose to flee to Continental Europe, where they hoped to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help. However, earlier in 1607 the main Spanish fleet in Europe had been defeated by the Dutch in the Battle of Gibraltar. But the oft-repeated theory that they were all about to be arrested contradicts writer Tadhg Ó Cianáin, the main historical source on the Flight, who said at the start of his account that O'Neill heard news of the ship anchored at Rathmullen on Thursday 6 September, and "took his leave of the Lord Justice (Chichester) the following Saturday". They had been meeting at Slane for several days, and there is no proof that warrants for his arrest had been drawn up, nor was it a hurried departure.<ref>Ó Cianáin T. "Departure of the chiefs of Ulster from Ireland" c. 1607–09, UCC Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: T100070, p. 1.</ref>

As the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) had been ended by the Treaty of London in 1604, King Philip III of Spain wanted to remain at peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty.Template:Sfn As a part of the peace proposals, a Spanish princess was to marry James' son, Henry, though this never happened.Template:Citation needed Spain had also gone bankrupt in 1598.Template:Sfn Tyrone ignored all these realities, remained in Italy, and persisted with his invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.

End of the old Gaelic orderEdit

File:Rathmullan, County Donegal.jpg
The Ulster aristocrats set sail from Rathmullan, on the shore of Lough Swilly.

The earls left from the town of Rathmullan with some of the leading Gaelic families in Ulster; they traveled down Lough Swilly on a French ship. Their departure was the end of the old Gaelic order, in that the earls were descended from Gaelic clan dynasties that had ruled their parts of Ulster for centuries. The Flight of the Earls was a watershed event in Irish history, as the ancient Gaelic aristocracy of Ulster went into permanent exile. Despite their attachment to and importance in the Gaelic system, the Earls' ancestors had accepted their Earldoms from the English-run Kingdom of Ireland in the 1540s, under the policy of surrender and regrant (under this policy, Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish rulers were to surrender themselves and their lands to Henry VIII, and he would grant their land back to them along with an English title). Some historians argue that their flight was forced upon them by the fallout from the Tudor conquest of Ireland, while others that it was an enormous strategic mistake that cleared the way for the Plantation of Ulster.<ref>'The Flight of the Earls: A Popular History' by Liam Swords, Columba Press, 2016.</ref>

From 1616, a number of bards outside Ulster had a poetic debate in the "Contention of the bards" and one of the arguments celebrated King James's Gaelic-Irish Milesian ancestry through Malcolm III of Scotland. So it is debatable whether the Gaelic order had ended or was evolving.

JourneyEdit

File:Flight-of-the-Earls-Engraving.jpg
19th-century engraving of Tyrone coercing his wife Catherine to depart Ireland

The Earls set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, accompanied by ninety followers, many of them Ulster noblemen, and some members of their families. Several left their wives behind, hoping either to return or retrieve them later. The late Tomás Ó Fiaich, Archbishop of Armagh, gave a lecture at Rathmullan in September 1988 and recounted that the Earl of Tyrone allegedly "had a gold cross which contained a relic of the True Cross, and this he trailed in the water behind the ship, and according to O'Ciainain, it gave some relief from the storm" during the crossing to Quillebeuf-sur-Seine in Normandy, France. They finally reached the Continent on 4 October 1607.<ref>Donegal Historical Society in O'Domhnaill Abu, issue no. 11, of Summer 1989.</ref> This supposed relic of the True Cross was probably a minor relic taken from that kept at Holy Cross Abbey, which they had previously visited en route to Kinsale in 1601.

Their destination was Spain, but they disembarked in France.Template:Sfn The party proceeded overland to Spanish Flanders, some remaining in Leuven, while the main party continued to Italy. Tadhg Ó Cianáin (sometimes quoted by historians as O'Keenan) subsequently described the journey in great detail. While the party was welcomed by many important officials in the Spanish Netherlands, he makes no mention of any negotiations or planning between the earls and the Spanish to start a new war to regain the earls' properties.Template:Sfn

Ó Cianáin's diary is important as the only continuous and contemporaneous account of the Flight. Its original title, Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn – the departure of the Chiefs of Ulster from Ireland – has been changed since the creation of the more dramatic phrase "Flight of the Earls" to the latter's modern literal translation, Imeacht na nIarlaí; and, according to Professor Ó Muraíle, turas can also mean a religious pilgrimage.<ref>Ó Muraíle, N. ed. Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn: From Ráth Maoláin to RomeTemplate:SndTadhg Ó Cianáin's contemporary narrative of the journey into exile of the Ulster chieftains and their followers, 1607–08; Pontifical Irish College, Rome, (2007); Template:ISBN</ref>

AttaindersEdit

Template:Multiple image King James issued "A Proclamation touching the Earles of Tyrone and Tyrconnell" on 15 November 1607, describing their action as treasonous, and therefore preparing the ground for the eventual forfeiture of their lands and titles.<ref>Template:Citation</ref> No reply that is known of was made to the proclamation.

Their titles were attainted in 1614, although they continued to be recognized on the Continent. The attainders were not considered legitimate in continental Catholic countries of the day. Even within the context of English and colonial Irish rule, the attainder came about six years after Rory, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, had already died. As accused, for him to have been properly tried, he should have been tried by his peers in the Peerage of Ireland, under the presiding authority of the Lord High Steward of Ireland. However, he was already dead, unable to stand in his own defense, and his title already inherited by his son Hugh "Albert" O'Donnell; therefore in order to attain the title, the trial would have to have been of Hugh "Albert", who had in fact committed no crime. The 6-year delay in hearing the attainders was unavoidable, as his peers in the Irish House of Lords next sat in 1613, and dealt with the matter in the usual manner.

The attainder was however considered a travesty of justice by his supporters, and was considered null and void by many on the Continent. The succession of the Earl of Tyrconnell's son, Hugh Albert O'Donnell, as 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell (1st creation) was therefore recognized as valid in the Spanish Empire, and he was given the same status under a new Spanish title Conde de Tirconnel.

Under the Common law, the title granted by King James and accepted by the earl had potentially lapsed as soon as the Earl embarked on the ship without his king's permission to leave Ireland, and when it lapsed it could not then pass down to his descendants without some special waiver. Assuming that Hugh Albert was being punished for a crime he did not commit, and was not being given a hearing, misses the whole point of the law of attainder. Hugh Albert was never issued a Writ of Summons to sit in the Irish House of Lords as his father's heir. Hugh Albert also never came to Dublin in 1614 to argue his case for a waiver, so far as is known, and never accepted James I as his king. Until he did so, his title and his claim to nobility were considered to be "in abeyance".

These attainders had a much greater impact on the people of Ulster. The 1603 peace arrangement with the three lords was ended, as they had broken its conditions by leaving the kingdom without permission, and their remaining freehold lands were confiscated. Chichester proposed a new plantation of settlers from England, Wales and Scotland, sponsored in part by the City of London merchants, which became known as the Plantation of Ulster. This had an enormous negative impact on the lower class Gaelic-culture inhabitants of Ulster.

Change in Spanish policyEdit

In the papal bull {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} of 1555, the Pope had conferred the title King of Ireland on King Philip II of Spain when he was married to Queen Mary. Philip II made no claim to the kingship of Ireland after Mary's death in 1558.Template:Citation needed He engaged in a lengthy war from 1585 with her sister Elizabeth I, and he and his successor Philip III supported the Irish Catholic rebels by sending the 4th Spanish Armada to Ireland in 1601 which ended in defeat at Kinsale. He had been offered the kingship in 1595 by O'Neill and his allies but turned it down. Given this lengthy support, it was reasonable for O'Donnell and O'Neill to imagine that they might solicit help from Philip III, but Spanish policy was to maintain the 1604 Treaty with England, and its European fleet had been weakened from several conflicts, including the Battle of Gibraltar by the Dutch over four months earlier.

Therefore, by mid-1607 Spain had neither the desire nor the means to assist an Irish rebellion. While the Flight is often described as a first step in arranging a new war, this must be seen as an emotional and false conclusion, as there were no plans or proposals at all from the Spanish side to support the earls. Spanish policy in the 1590s had been to help the Irish warlords as a nuisance against England, but they had been defeated by 1603. It could not be in any way in the interest of Spain to assist their unsuccessful former allies in 1607.

Commemoration on the 400th anniversaryEdit

File:Presidential arrival - geograph.org.uk - 821108.jpg
President of Ireland Mary McAleese arrives to unveil a statue depicting the Flight of the Earls at Rathmullan on 4 September 2007.

The 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls was marked on 14 September 2007, throughout Donegal, including a regatta of tall ships, fireworks, lectures, and conferences. The President of Ireland Mary McAleese unveiled a statue by John Behan depicting the Flight at Rathmullan.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> There is a permanent exhibition dedicated to the Flight of the Earls and the subsequent plantation in Draperstown in Northern Ireland and at the "Flight of the Earls Centre" in the Martello tower at Rathmullan. There were also commemorative postage stamps issued by the Irish post office,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> featuring Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and based on original illustrations by Sean O Brogain, made as they were about to sail out of Rathmullan.

In 2008 there were also celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Earls in Rome, with a celebratory performance by the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland in Sant'Ignazio Church in Rome.<ref>Irish Get Special Place for Corpus Christi Events Template:Webarchive, Zenit, 21 May 2008</ref> The flight was famously depicted by Thomas Ryan in his 1958 painting The Departure of O'Neill out of Ireland.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

List of refugeesEdit

Tadhg Ó Cianáin kept a record of the refugees who participated in the flight.Template:Sfn In 1972, Tomás Ó Fiaich and Pádraig de Barra published Imeacht na nIarlaí, which expanded the list of refugees based on extensive research.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn

Name Role/Rank Notes Template:Tooltip
Ship's Crew
John Connor Captain Template:Sfn
John Rath Pilot Not to be confused with merchant John Bath. Template:Efn
O'Neill Clan
Family
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone O'Neill clan chief, family patriarch Died July 1616 in Rome, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. Template:Sfnm
Catherine O'Neill, Countess of Tyrone Tyrone's fourth wife Died March 1619 in Naples. Template:Sfn
Hugh O'Neill, 4th Baron Dungannon Tanist to the O'Neill chieftaincy, Tyrone's eldest surviving son by his wife Siobhán Died in September 1609 of illness in Rome, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. Template:Sfnm
Shane O'Neill Tyrone and Catherine's eldest son Became "El Conde de Tyrone" in the Spanish nobility and appointed colonel of an Irish regiment in Spanish service. Died in the Battle of Montjuïc in January 1641. <ref>Template:Harvnb: Shane was on the Flight; Template:Harvnb: Shane, son of Tyrone and Catherine, was on the Flight, and became colonel of an Irish regiment in Spanish service; p. 13. fn. 4: Shane was recognised as the 3rd "Conde de Tyron" (Earl of Tyrone) in the Spanish nobility; p. 26: Shane was killed in the Battle of Montjuïc on 29 January 1641; Template:Harvnb: Shane was Tyrone and Catherine's eldest son.</ref>
Brian O'Neill Tyrone and Catherine's youngest son Found hanged in Brussels in August 1617, aged 13, possibly assassinated. Buried at St. Anthony's College. Template:Sfnm
Art Oge O'Neill Tyrone's nephew Son of Tyrone's brother Cormac MacBaron and Tyrconnell's sister Margaret <ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref>
Art Oge O'Neill's wife Template:Sfnm
Brian O'Neill Tyrone's nephew Son of Tyrone's brother Cormac MacBaron and Tyrconnell's sister Margaret <ref>Template:Harvnb; Template:Harvnb</ref>
Feardorcha O'Neill Tyrone's grandson Son of Tyrone's eldest son Conn O'Neill, who died in 1601 Template:Sfnm
Hugh Oge O'Neill Tyrone's grand-nephew Template:Sfn
Maigbheathadh Ó Néill Template:Sfn
Hugh MacHenry O'Neill Template:Sfn
Staff
Henry Hovenden Tyrone's secretary and chief advisor Tyrone's Anglo-Irish foster-brother. He died in September 1610 in Rome, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. Template:Sfnm
Henry O'Hagan Tyrone's secretary Survived Tyrone and settled disputes of his will. Template:Sfnm
Pedro Blanco Footman Spanish seaman who came to Ireland in the Spanish Armada. Blanco was still living in Rome in 1616. <ref name=":06">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Muirchearttach Ó Cionne Marshall Template:Sfn
Christopher Plunkett Master of horse Template:Sfn
Colmán Tyrone's priest Template:Sfnm
Tyrone's page Template:Sfn
Seán na bpunta Ó hÁgáin Rent collector Template:Sfn
Wife of Seán na bpunta Ó hÁgáin Template:Sfnm
2 lackies of Tyrone Template:Sfn
O'Donnell Clan
Family
Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell O'Donnell clan chief, family patriarch Made 1st Earl of Tyrconnell in 1603. Died in Rome from fever in July 1608, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. Template:Sfn
Hugh O'Donnell, Baron of Donegal Tanist to the O'Donnell chieftaincy, Tyrconnell's only son by his wife Bridget. Succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell. He became a general in the Spanish army, and died off Barcelona in July 1642 during a naval battle against the French. Template:Sfnm
Cathbarr O'Donnell Tyrconnell's only surviving brother His older brothers, Hugh Roe and Manus, died in the Nine Years' War. Cathbarr died in Rome from fever in September 1608, and was buried in San Pietro in Montorio. Template:Sfnm
Rosa O'Doherty Cathbarr's wife Sister of Cahir O'Doherty. She later remarried to Owen Roe O'Neill and returned to Ireland in the 1640s. Rosa died in Brussels in November 1660 and was buried at St. Anthony's College. Template:Sfn
Hugh O'Donnell Cathbarr and Rosa's son Died in 1625 as a captain in the Siege of Breda. Template:Sfnm
Nuala O'Donnell Tyrconnell's sister Died circa 1630, and buried at St. Anthony's College Template:Sfn
Grania O'Donnell Nuala's daughter Possibly the daughter of Niall Garve O'Donnell Template:Sfnm
Donal Oge O'Donnell Tyrconnell's half-nephew Son of Rory's late half-brother Donal Template:Sfnm
Nechtain O'Donnell Tyrconnell's second cousin Template:Sfn
Staff
Seán Crón MacDaibhid Steward Template:Sfn
Mathew Tullie Secretary Formerly secretary to Tyrconnell's predecessor Hugh Roe O'Donnell Template:Sfnm
Caecilia O'Gallagher Hugh Albert O'Donnell's wet nurse Template:Sfnm
Muiris Tyrconnell's page Template:Sfn
4 servants of Tyrconnell Template:Sfn
3 lackies of Tyrconnell Template:Sfn
3 waiting women Template:Sfn
Other
Nobles
Cúchonnacht Maguire Maguire clan chief, Lord of Fermanagh Maguire organised the ship. He died of fever in Genoa in August 1608. <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Sémus Mac Éimhir MacConnell Maguire's son Template:Sfn
Maguire's son Name of the second son is unknown Template:Sfn
Donagh O'Brian A cousin of the earls of Thomond and Clanrickard who helped Maguire get to Rathmullan <ref>Template:Harvnb: Donnchadh Ó Briain was on the Flight; Template:Harvnb. "Donagh O'Brien, a cousin of the earls of Thomond and Clanrickard, who had helped Cuchonnacht Maguire to get to Rathmullan, had also joined the throng."</ref>
Clergymen
Fr. Muiris Ultach Franciscan friar This individual could be Muiris MacDonough Ultach or Muiris MacSean Ultach. Template:Sfnm
Fr. Florence Conroy Template:Sfn
Fr. Roibeard Mac Artúir (or Chamberlain) Template:Sfn
Fr. Tomás Strong Template:Sfn
Fr. Patrick Duff The Earl of Tyrone's private chaplain Template:Sfnm
Fr. Pádraig Ó Lorcáin The Countess of Tyrone's chaplain Template:Sfnm
Fr. Pádraig Ó Luchráin Template:Sfn
Fr. Niallán Mac Thiarnáin Template:Sfn
Fr. Toirealach Ó Sléibhín Template:Sfn
Fr. Brian Ó Gormlaigh Template:Sfn
Fr. Diarmaid Ó Duláin Template:Sfn
Students
Patrick MacHenry O'Hagan Template:Sfn
Patrick MacCormac O'Hagan Template:Sfn
Éamann Ó Maolchraoibhe Template:Sfn
Fearghas mac Cathmhaoil Template:Sfn
Matha Mac Thréanfhir Template:Sfn
Walter Rath Template:Sfn
Merchants
Richard Weston Dundalk merchant Manager of Tyrone's bribes. By 1599 he had become a double agent working for the English government. Template:Sfnm
John Bath Merchant from Ulster He was a brother of William Bath, the Jesuit who killed Donal O'Sullivan Beare in 1618. John Bath is not to be confused with pilot John Rath. Template:Efn

Other refugeesEdit

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Nobility left behind in IrelandEdit

See alsoEdit

Notes and referencesEdit

NotesEdit

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CitationsEdit

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SourcesEdit

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Further readingEdit

External linksEdit

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