AL
AM
Y
Where the Irish fought back...
This map shows the principal clashes between the rebel Gaelic forces
and the English armies of Elizabeth I during the Nine Years’ WarIn the 16th century, Ulster was
described “as the very fostermother
and example of all the rebellions of
Ireland”. The province had been
least affected by the Anglo-Norman
conquest of Ireland and remained
its most Gaelic. But, in the
wake of the defeat of
Hugh O’Neill (left), that
situation was to be
turned on its head.
After the flight of the
Ulster lords into exile in
1607, the crown was
able to undertake
the massiveplantation of the province, under
which 80 per cent of clan lands was
transferred to English and Scottish
landholders for colonisation by
British settlers. The city of London
made a special investment in the
project, developing the city and
county of Londonderry.
Within 50 years, Ulster had been
culturally and politically trans-
formed. But with the native popula-
tion growing increasingly resentful
of the influx of British immigrants –
boosted by Presbyterians from
lowland Scotland – that transforma-
tion was to bring huge instability.entering Munster and overthrowing the
plantation there. With only Ireland’s towns
in English hands – and their Catholic
inhabitants viewed with great suspicion by
the crown – Elizabeth’s grip on the island
was rapidly being loosened.
The queen’s response was to dispatch the
largest English army ever to set foot in
Ireland, headed by Robert Devereux, Earl
of Essex. Elizabeth instructed Essex to
confront O’Neill on the battlefield. Instead,
he marched his 17,000 men fruitlessly
around the midlands, Munster and south
Leinster. Worse still, he resolved to negotiate
with O’Neill in person.
Outfoxed by his wily adversary – who
ran rings around him in negotiations –
Essex agreed a truce that many in England
considered not only a humiliation but
a gross dereliction of duty. Returning to
London in September 1599, Essex’s reputa-
tion was severely damaged. He was put on
trial and executed for treason in 1601.Wicked policies
Meanwhile, Hugh O’Neill’s campaign to
eject the English from Ireland was going
from strength to strength. Having seen off
England’s greatest captain, O’Neill made
a play that English officials had long been
fearing. He could not win the towns by force
of arms; instead, he issued a proclamation
appealing to their inhabitants as fellow
Catholics and Irishmen. “I will employ
myself to the utmost of my power in their
defence and for the extirpation of heresy,
the planting of the Catholic religion, the
delivery of our country of infinite murders,
wicked and detestable policies by which this
kingdom was hitherto governed, nourished
in obscurity and ignorance, maintained in
barbarity and incivility and consequently
of infinite evils which are too lamentable
to be rehearsed.”O’Neill’s army inflicts English
forces’ greatest-ever defeat in
Ireland at the battle of Yellow
Ford, depicted in a contempo-
rary illustration. Fortified by
a series of victories over
Elizabeth’s generals, around the
end of the 16th century O’Neill
called for Ireland to become a
self-governing Catholic country...and what happened to Ulster after the war
MAP ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL HEWITT – BATTLEFIELD DESIGN