1601 AD
1601 AD Sir George Carew, the appointed English commander in Ireland for Elizabeth 1st, the Welsh Tudor English Queen, advised her that rebellion was rife in Ossory / Co. Kilkenny in the south - west of Southern Leinster, which was the territory controlled for her by James Butler the English twelth Earl of Ormonde, and that it would remain so, as long as he lived and Blount / Lord Mountjoy, the newly appointed English Lord Deputy in Ireland, then went on the attack in Southern Leinster, against the Heremonian Cu Corb Ui Dunlaing O Byrnes at Ballincor in Glenmalure in Co. Wicklow in the south - east, which bought to an end their resistance at this time, but Phelim O Byrne, their Chieftain, was able to escape to fight another day.
James Fitz Thomas Fitzgerald, the sixteenth Sugan Anglo - Irish Catholic Earl of Desmond, with a force of 8,000 men had tried in vain to defend the English Galls onslaught in the Munster Province, but he had come to realise that all was now lost and he had since gone into hiding in the Mitchelstown Caves in Co. Cork in Southern Munster and Edmond Fitz Gibbon / Fitz Gerald his kinsman, who had his Estates at Killmallock in Co. Limerick in the north - west of Munster, was to be betray him there and by this terrible deed was then to be the last White Knight of Desmond as he was given a reward of 1000 pounds by Elizabeth 1st for his treachery, while James Fitz Thomas Fitz Gerald the sixteenth Earl of Desmond was to be sent to the Tower of London to meet his end.
July 12th: Pope
Clement
V111, attempting to stimulate some semblance of hope in Ireland, made a proclamation that anyone who visited
St. Gobnat’s Church at
Ballyvourney
in Co. Cork in the
Sullane
Valley in
Southern Munster on
her feast day, and prayed for peace in Ireland, and the expulsion of heresy, obtained a special
indulgence.
Autumn:
The Spanish fleet being sent by Phillip 111, the King of Spain, to assist the
Irish
resistance, set out from Cadiz for
Ireland
with 4,000 men on board, but ran into a great storm
on the high seas and were then split into
2 individual
groups.
September:
The larger of the 2 groups from the Spanish
Fleet was under
Don Juan de Aguila,
and they
arrived into the
Brandon Estuary at
Kinsale
in Co. Cork
in Southern Munster
with
3,800
men on board, and
fortified the town, and occupied the
2 castles near the entrance, at
Kincurren
and
Castlepark, situated at the southern end of the
harbou where they immediately came under
heavy attack from the English
Military forces and
Donnell
Cam
O Sullivan
the
Heberian Eoghanacht Chaisil
Chief
of
Beare and Bantry there in
the west of
Co. Cork, offered to supply him with a
further
2,000
men, but he declined his offer.
The
O Sullivan
Sept, who were also descended from 85.Eoghan
Mor,
originally had their kingdom and territory in
Co. Tipperary
in the north - east of the Munster
Province, where they then controlled the region there from
Clonmel to
Knoch Graffan,
overlooking the
River Suir,
but had then been driven further south by the invading
Anglo - Normans, into the
west of Co. Cork and
Co. Kerry, were they
had finally settled in the area from
Bantry Bay to
Dingle Bay and once settled there, they had
then divided into 2
main O Sullivan / Ui
Suilebhain Septs, who were to be known as
"The
O Sullivan
Mor - the Greater"
and
"The
O
Sullivan Beare," where their new territories
there took in the south of the
River Kenmare and the
Bear Haven
Peninsula, along with
Dursey Island and
Bantry.
November 2nd: Aedh Dubh / Red Hugh O Donnell who was now "The O Donnell" had been previously held up in his campaign against the English onslaught while trying to restrain his kinsmen and brother - in - law, Niall Garbh - the Rough O Donnell, who had gone over to the English side due to his jealousy of the growing popularity of 126.Aedh Dubh / Black Hugh O Niall who was now "The O Niall" and the esteemed position he now held among all of the Heremonian Dal Cuinn "northern" Ui Niaill Septs. Conn O Donnell, the son of Niall Garbh - the Rough O Donnell had been killed near the monastery in Donegal in Co. Donegal in the west of the Ulster Province where he and his father were now fighting for the English cause against his young brother - in - law Aedh Ruadh / Red Hugh O Donnell. With the problem of Niall Garbh O Donnell now out of the way Aedh Ruadh / Red Hugh O Donnell decided to take his Dal Cuinn "northern" Ui Niaill Cenel Conaill forces, and his other Irish allies from Ballymote in Co. Sligo in the north - west of the Connacht Province, and head south down to Kinsale in Co. Cork in Southern Munster, to try and relieve the Spanish forces there and this was to involve a forced march of 12 weeks, after first crossing over the frozen Slieve Felim Mountains on his way down).
December 1st: The other smaller section of the Spanish Fleet under Don Pedro de Zuibar, who had since returned to Cadiz, had set out again with 6 ships, and had by now reached Castlehaven, nearly 30 miles west of Kinsale, just as 126.Aedh Dubh / Black Hugh O Niall and his Heremonian Dal Cuinn "northern" Ui Niaill Cenel nEogain forces also were reaching Kinsale themselves and many of the Gaelic Munster Irish Chiefs also joined in with him, and one of these was "The O Driscoll" who was the Ithian Chieftain there, who handed over his castle at Castlehaven to the Spanish commander and Sir Fineen O Driscoll, another Ithian Chieftain, who was also a Royalist, handed over his two castles also, which covered the entrance to parts of Baltimore and Donnell Cam O Sullivan also handed over his Dunboy Castle to them.
December 20th: Donnell Cam O Sullivan, assisted Don Pedro de Zuibar, to drive off the English forces from out of Castlehaven, and had another of his uncles, the "aged," Dermot O Sullivan, escort the Spanish Captain Saavedra, to his Dunboy Castle with 60 soldiers and 6 cannons to protect the harbour at Beare, which meant that there was by then 140 men defending the Donnell Cam O Sullivan's Dunboy Castle.
December 23rd: Donnell Cam O Sullivan, took 1,000 of his Irish forces to the final Battle at Kinsale, after sending off a letter to Philip 111 the King of Spain, committing his all to the Irish cause, which would be seized by the English and used against him later on.
December 24th:
The English Military forces were
full on attacking the Spanish at
the Battle of
Kinsale in Co. Cork
in Southern Munster, and
126.Aedh Dubh / Black
Hugh
O
Niall and Aedh
Ruadh /
Red Hugh O Donnell,
who had both made separate forced long marches with their
individual Dal Cuinn "northern" Ui Niaill
forces
from the Ulster Province, had crossed the
ford at
Shannon Bridge and they had joined up
by now just outside of
Kinsale. (The
Irish
still wore their hair with a fringe at the front, known as a
glib, which hid their eyes and made them hard to recognize
individually, which
only infuriated the English. The
Irish forces then went directly into the battle against
the English forces, who
were under the command of
Blount / Mountjoy the English
appointed Lord Deputy in Ireland,
for Elizabeth 1st, who had a total of
17,000 troops at his disposal.
Brian
Oge
Mac
Mahon, a son of
Aedh /
Hugh
Mac Mahon, had previously informed the
English commander about the
approaching
Irish
Septs from the north, while he was involved in consuming a bottle of whiskey with him, and the
English had then turned around to
take the
Irish
head on.
Although the battle
was to continue on until
Christmas Eve the
Spanish, who were now in the
rear of it all, would not come out and
join
in the fight, and this led to devastating
results
with 1,200 Irish killed and only
12 English,
but during the end of the battle,
126.Aedh Dubh / Black Hugh
O Niall managed to escape,
and lead his remaining Irish
forces back to the north to
Co. Tyrone
in Central Southern Ulster,
to try and regroup there, but before he left he was to install
Donnell
Cam
O Sullivan
as the commander of the
Irish forces
in the Munster Province,
while
Aedh Ruadh /
Red
Hugh O Donnell
also
handed over his command to his young brother,
Rory O Donnell
to lead his men back to
Co. Donegal
in the north - west of the
Ulster Province
to regroup also.
He then set out personally for
Spain,
to try and obtain further assistance from
King Philip 111, who was to promise him
another fleet of ships to try
and free the Ulster
Province, but it was never to eventuate, as he now
had personal problems of his own with the Dutch.
The
Heremonian Dal Cuinn "northern"
Ui Niaill
Cenel nEogain O Cane / Kane
/
Ui Cathain territory near
Coleraine in the north - east of the
Ulster Province, was also still under
heavy attack from the English
Military forces there, and the
Heremonian
Dal
Cuinn
Ui Briuin Ai Mac Dermots,
who had their territory in the Curlieu
Mountains
in
Northern
Connacht, were also
now
forced to submit, due to the devastating tactics of
"Slash and Burn" being carried out by
Blount / Mountjoy the English appointed Lord Deputy in
Ireland. The Mac Dermot's original territory of 30,000 acres, was also
confiscated, and the remaining
members of his Dal Cuinn Ui Briuin Ai Ui Diarmada Sept, were then driven
out of
Loch Key, so they went on to
Coolavin,
to try and hide out in the forest there.
Jordan's Castle at
Ard
Glass in
Co. Down in the south - east
of the
Ulster Province,
which was previously under siege by the
Dal Cuinn "northern"
Ui Niaill
was now relieved by the
English Military forces also. (Owing to the damage done to it on this
occasion, and due to its prominence, it would later
be restored).
Francis
Bacon,
a confidant of Elizabeth 1st,
in England, appealed to her for the
Irish
people
to be treated as if one nation,
but they were portrayed there in England as,
"Beasts
and vermin, who were
nevertheless still loyal to
England,
as there were only a few unnatural and barbarous pagan
rebels there, who needed to be got rid of."