The
Irish History
And
The Fighting Irish
And
The Fighting Irish
A Brief Summary
Continued from the previous page. .
second Desmond rebellion was sparked when James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald launched an invasion of
Munster in 1579. During his exile in Europe, he had reinvented himself as a soldier of the counter - reformation, arguing that since the Pope's excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 Irish Catholics no longer owed loyalty to a heretic monarch. The Pope granted Fitzmaurice an " indulgence " and supplied him with troops amd money. Fitzmaurice landed at Smerwick, near Dingle ( modern County Kerry ) on July 18th 1579 with a small force of Spanish and Italian troops. He was joined in rebellion on August 1st by John of Desmond, a brother of the Earl, who had a large following among his kinsmen and the disaffected swordsmen of Munster. Other Gaelic Clans and old English families who lived the way of the Irish joined in the rebellion. After Fitzmaurice was killed in a skirmish with the Clanwilliam Burkes on August 18th, John Fitzgerald assumed leadership of the rebellion.
Gerald, the Earl of Desmond, initially resisted the call of the rebels and tried to remain neutral but gave in once the authorities had proclaimed him a traitor. The Earl joined the rebellion by sacking the towns of Youghal ( on November 13th ) and Kinsale, and devastated the country of the English and their allies. However by the summer of 1580, English troops under William Pelham and locally raised Irish forces under the Earl of Ormonde succeeded in bring the rebellion under control, re-taking the south coast, destroying the lands of Desmonds and their allies in the process, and killing their tenants. By capturing Carrigafoyle at Easter 1580, the principle Desmond castle at the mouth of the Shannon river, they cut off the Geraldine forces from the rest of the country and prevented a landing of foreign troops into the main Munster ports. It looked as if the rebellion was fading away.
Gerald, the Earl of Desmond, initially resisted the call of the rebels and tried to remain neutral but gave in once the authorities had proclaimed him a traitor. The Earl joined the rebellion by sacking the towns of Youghal ( on November 13th ) and Kinsale, and devastated the country of the English and their allies. However by the summer of 1580, English troops under William Pelham and locally raised Irish forces under the Earl of Ormonde succeeded in bring the rebellion under control, re-taking the south coast, destroying the lands of Desmonds and their allies in the process, and killing their tenants. By capturing Carrigafoyle at Easter 1580, the principle Desmond castle at the mouth of the Shannon river, they cut off the Geraldine forces from the rest of the country and prevented a landing of foreign troops into the main Munster ports. It looked as if the rebellion was fading away.
Carrigafoyle Castle stood guard over the mouth of the Shannon estuary from its construction in the late 15th Century until it was sacked by English forces under Sir William Pelham in 1580. The castle was being held by some 50 Irishmen of the Earl of Desmond along with 16 Spanish soldiers. The siege began on Palm Sunday 1580. On the second day of the battle, the English cannons proved too strong for the castle's western wall, collapsing from the bombardment. The damage was so extensive, the castle was never rebuilt despite its strategic location.
However, in July 1580, the rebellion spread to Leinster, under the leadership of Gaelic Irish Chieftain Fiach MacHugh O' Byrne and the Pale lord Viscount Baltinglass - motivated by Catholicism and hostility to the English. A large English force under the Lord Deputy of Ireland Earl Grey de Wilton were sent to subdue them, only to be ambushed and massacred at the Battle of Glenmalure on August 25th, losing over 800 dead. However the Leinster rebels were unable to capitalise on their victory or to effectively coordinate their strategy with the Munster insurgents. On September 10th 1580. 800 Papal troops landed at Smerwick in Kerry to support the rebellion, but were beseiged in a fort at Dun an Oir, also known as the Siege of Smerick. They surrendered after two days of fighting, 700 were put to the sword and massacred by the English forces. By relentless " scorched-earth " tactics, the English broke the momentum of the rebellion by mid 1581. By May 1581, most of the minor rebels and Fitzgerald allies in Munster and Leinster had accepted Elizabeth I's offer of a general pardon. Even worse, John of Desmond, in many ways the main leader of the rebellion, was killed north of Cork in early 1582.
For the Gerladine Earl however ther would be no pardon, and he was pursued by crown forces until the end. From 1581 to 1583, the war dragged on, with the remaining Geraldines evading capture in the mountains of Kerry. The rebellion was finally ended on the 2nd November 1583 when the Earl was hunted down and killed near Tralee in
Kerry by the local clan O' Moriarty. The clan Chief, Maurice, received 1000 pounds of silver from the English government for Desmond's head, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth. His body was triumphantly displayed on the walls of Cork
For the Gerladine Earl however ther would be no pardon, and he was pursued by crown forces until the end. From 1581 to 1583, the war dragged on, with the remaining Geraldines evading capture in the mountains of Kerry. The rebellion was finally ended on the 2nd November 1583 when the Earl was hunted down and killed near Tralee in
Kerry by the local clan O' Moriarty. The clan Chief, Maurice, received 1000 pounds of silver from the English government for Desmond's head, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth. His body was triumphantly displayed on the walls of Cork
Aftermath
After three years of scorched earth warfare, famine hit Munster. In April 1582, the provost marshal of Munster, Sir Warham St Leger, estimated the 30,000 people had died of famine in the previous six months. It was if the Irish people were trying to hold on to their very own existence at the hands of the English crown and government. Plague broke out on Cork city, where the country people fled to avoid the fighting. People continued to die of famine and plague long after the war had ended, and it was estimated that by 1589 one third of the province's population had died. grey was recalled by Elizabeth I for excessive brutality. Two famous accounts tell us of the devastation of Munster after the Desmond rebellion. The first
is from the Gaelic Annals of the Four Masters:
" The whole tract of country from Waterford to Lothra, and from Cnamhchoill to the county of Kilkenny, was suffered to remain one surface of weeds and waste . . At this period it was commonly said, that the lowing of a cow, or the whistle of the ploughboy, could scarcely be heard from Dun-Caoin to Cashel in Munster "
The second account is from the ' View of the present State of Ireland ' written by English poet Edmund Spenser who fought in the campain:
" In those late wars in Munster; for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same.
Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [ of ] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they dis eat of the carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.
is from the Gaelic Annals of the Four Masters:
" The whole tract of country from Waterford to Lothra, and from Cnamhchoill to the county of Kilkenny, was suffered to remain one surface of weeds and waste . . At this period it was commonly said, that the lowing of a cow, or the whistle of the ploughboy, could scarcely be heard from Dun-Caoin to Cashel in Munster "
The second account is from the ' View of the present State of Ireland ' written by English poet Edmund Spenser who fought in the campain:
" In those late wars in Munster; for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same.
Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [ of ] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they dis eat of the carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.
The wars of the 1570s and 1580s marked a watershed in Ireland. Although English control over the country was still far from total, the Geraldine axis of power had been annihilated, and Munster was " planted " with English colonists following the parliamentary arrangements of 1585. Following a survey begun in 1584 by Sir Valentine Browne, Knight, Surveyor General of Ireland, the thousands of English soldiers and administrators who had been imported to deal with the rebellion were allocated land in the Munster Plantation of Desmond's confiscated estates. The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland was completed after the subsequent Nine Years War in Ulster and the extention of plantation policy to other parts of the country. But that is another part of Ireland's history.
