From the English point of view, the problem with the Irish was that they perversely preferred savagery (Gaelic culture) to civilisation (English culture). The solution was to impose Anglicisation on Ireland through the introduction of an English-style shire system of local government in which legal, administrative and military authority was held by a royally appointed sheriff. This process had been begun as long ago as c. 1200 with the creation of County Dublin, but in the early 1500s it was still confined only to those areas that had been subject to English colonisation. The Reformation made the accomplishment of Anglicisation all the more urgent because England now found itself politically isolated with no major continental ally. Disobedient Ireland was an obvious back door through which the Catholic powers might try to launch an invasion of England, especially now that the Irish might see them as liberators from religious oppression. It was in this context that the English government conceived the idea of plantations. Ireland was about to become a proving ground for English colonialism, as the lessons learned there would be applied in the New World and elsewhere.
Initially plantations were not intended to be a means of ethnic cleansing. Rebellious Irish and Old English lords were despoiled of their lands, which were then handed over to loyal ‘New English’ and, sometimes, Irish lords. The new English lords would provide islands of authority and be a civilising influence over the peasantry. The first plantation, which took place in Laois and Offaly in 1556, was planned by Edward’s government but executed under the Catholic Mary. Later plantations under Elizabeth were intended not only to Anglicise but also to spread Protestantism. Naturally, there was resistance. Because the former owners waged highly successful guerrilla warfare against the planters, the English government committed more and more troops to garrisoning Ireland. The largest of the Tudor plantations took place in Munster in 1584 on more than a quarter of a million acres of land confiscated after the defeat of a rebellion led by James Fitzmaurice. The lands were awarded to thirty-five undertakers (i. e. chief planters), many of whom were happy simply to live off the rents of the existing Irish tenants. Others expelled the Irish from their lands altogether and introduced English agricultural practices and English tenants. By 1592 there were more than 3,000 New English settlers in Munster and the plantation appeared to be prospering. In that year a new plantation, of ‘loyal Irish’, was made on lands in Monaghan in Ulster which had been confiscated from Hugh Roe MacMahon for breaking his surrender and re-grant agreement.
Except for Carrickfergus and parts of Down, Ulster had never been under effective (or even ineffective) English control. Alarmed by the implications of the Monaghan plantation, Hugh O’Neill, earl of Tyrone and Ireland’s most powerful Gaelic lord, secretly plotted a rebellion with his neighbours, the O’Donnells ofTyrconnell and the Maguires of Fermanagh. O’Neill was a canny operator. He had not wasted the time spent in his youth at the English court and he knew how to appear Anglicised even if he was not. While instructing his allies to begin hostilities in 1593, O’Neill made a show of loyalty to the crown that allowed him to sabotage English attempts to suppress the rebellion for two years. O’Neill finally came out into the open when, to prevent its being reinforced, he attacked an English garrison on the river Blackwater in 1595. He was promptly proclaimed a traitor. For the first time, the Irish forces had considerable numbers of firearms, and their numbers were swelled by thousands of redshanks.
Plate 30 Hugh O’Neill
Source: Getty Images/Hulton Archive lightly armed mercenary infantry recruited in Argyll. What the rebels did lack, however, were cannons and this made it impossible for them to take forts and towns except by surprise, negotiation or starvation after a long siege. O’Neill resorted to guerrilla tactics, attacking the plantations and ambushing English supply columns on their way to isolated garrisons. One such ambush was the memorably named Battle of the Ford of the Biscuits in 1594, where an English column on its way to Enniskillen lost all its supplies at a river crossing. Knowing that Elizabeth was reluctant to commit herself to the huge expense of defeating the rebellion by force, O’Neill spent months in insincere peace negotiations, while he imported arms and trained his troops. By the end of 1595, the rebellion had spread to Connacht and Leinster. After O’Neill destroyed an English army of
4,000 foot and 300 cavalry in another skilful ambush at Yellow Ford near Armagh in August 1598, the Irish of Munster rose too and destroyed the plantation there.
By the beginning of 1599, most of Ireland was once again beyond the control of the English crown. Elizabeth reluctantly accepted that the time for penny pinching and half measures was over and raised the largest English army yet sent to Ireland, over 17,000 strong. To command it, she appointed her favourite, Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Essex was a courageous soldier but his dashing appearance had always promised more than he delivered. In Ireland he was utterly out of his depth. Unable to bring the Irish to battle, Essex’s poorly supplied army wasted away as he campaigned ineffectively, first in Leinster, and then in Connacht. Ordered by the queen to invade Ulster, Essex met O’Neill face to face near Dundalk in September and agreed to yet another truce. Elizabeth was furious and placed Essex under house arrest when he returned to England, without permission, to try to justify his actions; he was executed for treason early in 1601, after a rather pathetic attempt at a coup.
With the English position now close to complete collapse, the triumphant O’Neill presented the queen with demanding peace terms, amounting to a fully autonomous Ireland. The plantations were to be reversed and land returned to its original owners. Traditional Gaelic laws of landownership were to be restored. There was to be a native Irish judiciary and administration. The Irish would have equal rights to travel and trade in England. Above all, the Catholic church was to be fully restored to its pre-Reformation position in Ireland and a Catholic university was to be founded. Elizabeth could not possibly accept such terms, which her secretary of state. Sir Robert Cecil, described as utopian, and, as she always did when her back was against the wall, she acted decisively. In January 1600 Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was appointed as Essex’s successor and given reinforcements, naval forces and a blank cheque. Mountjoy had served in Essex’s army and he understood the futility of chasing the more mobile Irish around the countryside. Ignoring O’Neill’s attacks on the Pale, which were intended to provoke him into doing just that, Mountjoy concentrated on building and garrisoning a string of forts to cut Ulster off from the rest of Ireland. Meanwhile, two more English armies campaigned in Munster and Connacht. This was an expensive policy but it began to take away O’Neill’s freedom of movement and, when the English garrisons began to lay waste the Ulster countryside, it also undermined his popular support.
Mountjoy kept the pressure up right through the winter and spring of 1600-1 but O’Neill’s resistance was stiffened by news that Philip III of Spain was sending an army to support him. Unfortunately, when the 3,400-strong Spanish army landed in September it did so at Kinsale in the far south. Having lost many men, and most of his munitions at sea, Don Juan d’Aguila, the Spanish commander, did not feel strong enough to take the field, so he stayed put. Mountjoy quickly besieged him with a force of around 7,000 and even risked depleting his garrisons in the north to reinforce it. English ships blockaded Kinsale, cutting off the Spanish army’s supplies. O’Neill felt honour bound to go to the aid of the Spanish, but to do this he and his ally Hugh O’Donnell had to leave their northern strongholds and march their armies 300 miles south, evading the English forces which they knew would try to intercept them. Miraculously, they succeeded and by early December Mountjoy found his army trapped, the Spanish on one side, the Irish on the other. The besieger was besieged. The position began to get desperate for Mountjoy as his army began to melt away through disease and desertion, but the Spanish were also suffering and they asked O’Neill to join them in a coordinated attack on the English camp. O’Neill agreed, uncharacteristically risking everything on open battle. Mountjoy had barely 6,000 fit men left to face a combined Irish-Spanish force of over 9,000, so perhaps an Irish victory seemed like a foregone conclusion. Before first light on the morning of Christmas Eve 1601, O’Neill’s men began to form up for a surprise attack on the English. They did so clumsily and noisily. Alerted, Mountjoy sent his cavalry to outflank the Irish and attack them from the rear. Thrown into complete confusion by this unexpected pre-emptive attack, the Irish army broke and fled, suffering heavy casualties. It was all over in less than three hours. Throughout, the Spanish never fired a shot - the Irish had not even got close to the agreed rendezvous point. His position now hopeless, Aguila negotiated an honourable surrender and withdrew his forces on 2 January 1602.
World History
