Irish History
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The Fighting Irish

Shane the Proud continued from previous page . .

Shane

 and his household drank the wine - and just escaped death. The poisoner was unskilled.

But Shane knew now forever with whom he had to deal. It was the second attempt that English statesmen had secretly made to assassinate him. There is a State paper, a letter from Sussex to Elizabeth in which he tells of his efforts to have Shane murdered. Shane flung off his allegiance. Aleegiances sat on these Irish nobles like a red saddle loosely girt. After the gift of wine he thought his sword his best security. he won a victory notable for for its name. Strange poppies lay among the harvest of the slain reaped by his Gall-oglach. They were 300 English soldiers, not in buff but in scarlet coats. The clansmen counted and wondered at the new uniform of the foes. So that battle was called the battle of the Red Coats.
But hard were the strokes of his enemies - " Queens' " O' Donnels, " Queen's " O' Neills, Elizabeth's forces - and the Proud was left the choice of submission or an appeal to the Scots mercenaries. He chose the latter, freed Sorely Boy McDonnell, and went to a banquet they gave. To that banquet also went a man whom the Lord Deputy had maintained privately in Tyrone when he and Shane were in friendship and peace. The spy waited till the wine had made men drunk and think of their wrongs. The O' Neill was slain. The spy hastened to Dublin Castle and received from Sir Henry Sidney a thousand marks from the public treasury. So Shane's head went upon the north-west gate of Dublin.

One of the earliest known illustrations of Dublin Castle ( 1581 ) of an English Lord and cavalry leaving the gate on the north side of the Castle, onto Castle St. Dublin. The view is from the North-east. Note the heads of ' Irish rebels ' displayed on pikes above the gate. The head of Shane the Proud would have been displayed in exactly the same way.

Irish Poet John Savage, wrote a fine poem entitled " Shane's Head " - in which a clansman of Shane standing outside the wall of Dublin Castle is apostrophising the head - from which poem the following lines are taken:

" Shane's Head "

Is it thus, O Shane the haughty! Shane the valiant! that we meet -
Have my eyes been lit by Heaven but to guide me to defeat?
Have I no Chief, or you no clan, to give us both defence?
Or must I, too, be statued here with thy cold eloquence?
Thy ghastly head grins scorn upon old Dublin's Castle-tower,
Thy shaggy hair is wind-tossed, and thy brow seems rough with power:
Thy wrathful lips, like sentinels, by foulest treachery stung,
Look rage upon the the world of wrong, but chain thy fiery tongue.

That tongue, whose Ulster accent woke the ghost of Colm Cille,
Whose warrior words fenced round with spears the oaks of Derry Hill;
Whose reckless tones gave life and death vassals and to knaves,
And hunted hordes of saxons into holy Irish graves.
The Scottish marauders whitened when his war-cry met their ears,
And the death-bird, like a vengeance, poised above his stormy spears
Ay, Shane, across the thundering sea, out-chanting it, your tongue
Flung wild un-Saxon war-whoopings the saxon Court among.

Just think, O Shane! the same moon shines on Liffey as on Foyle.
And lights the ruthless knaves on both, our kinsmen to despoil;
And you the hope, voice, battle-axe, the shield of us and ours,
A murdered, trunkless, blinding sight above these Dublin towers !
Thy face is paler than the moon; my heart is paler still -
My heart? I had no heart - ' twas yours,' twas yours! to keep or kill.
And you kept it safe for Ireland, Chief - your life, your soul, your pride;
But they sought it in they bosom Shane - with proud O' Neill it died.