Victorian Books, Selections from Old Kerry Records Page 117

Our last notice of Earl Gerald (v. No. 11 of the Antiquities of Kerry-,) was in some advices from Sir William Drury, A.D. 1579, which intimated a seeming correspondence between the Earl and his brothers, Sir John, and Sir James of Desmond, both banded in open array against the Queen's authority. When Sir John of Desmond was routed and slain at Connelloe, near Limerick, the Desmond and the Lord of Lixnaw overlooked the engagement from an eminence to this daycalled " Tory Hill" and after the battle the Earl sent letters of congratulation to Sir Nicholas Maltbie, the victor, who thinking that if the victory had been on the other side the congratulations would have gone thither also, received his missives very coldly and " demanded a conference " which the Earl, probably distrusting that as on a former occasion in his troubled career conference might mean "captivity" carefully evaded. Now who is to decide which party was here in fault? Curry in his "History of the Civil Wars" affirms, that the English determined to partition the Desmond Palatinate among fresh English settlers were resolved to make or declare Desmond a rebel, and that they had no matter against him but mere suspicion, and that only because he refused or delayed to draw out his forces against his brother John of Desmond who appeared in arms against the Queen. Others again allege, that on the person of the priest, Doctor Allen, slain in battle, were found papers which placed beyond doubt the Earl's complicity in his brother's treason. One thing is certain that Saunders, the most able and active mover of the whole insurrection, was now attached to the Earl's person, and that among those conditions proposed to him through his relative the Earl of Ormond with which he refused to comply, was a demand that he should " deliver up Saunders and the Spaniards." Saunders never left him afterwards while he lived, but to counterbalance these, circumstantial evidences of disaffection Desmond, or rather his Countess, that unhappy lady of whom mention was before made (p. 114) gave one proof of confidence in the English, so little compatible with the idea of disloyalty, that the Earl's after conduct seems indicative of insanity unless we suppose him urged on by impulses, or injuries which he had not the prudence to resist or the patience to endure. About a month before he was proclaimed rebel the Countess of Desmond had delivered up to Sir William Drury at Limerick, their only son, and with him as Curry informs us " Patrick O'Haly, Bishop of Mayo," and " Cornelius O'Rourke a Franciscan," both "men of importance " as pledges for the Earl's loyalty. And yet, in the face of these pledges, we read of Desmond's attacking the English Camp at Rathkeale in person on two successive nights, of his answering the entreaty of Sir Nicholas Maltbie to return to his allegiance by declaring that — " he owed the Queen no allegiance and would no longer yield her obedience." To Sir William Pelham, the Lord Deputy on Drury's death and who summoned him to a conference at Cashel, he sent a vague excuse by his usual Messenger the Countess, and to four distinct propositions made to him through Ormond he gave evasive replies. His object seemed to be procrastination though with what view none can tell, but at length came the fatal day when the great Earl was a proclaimed and outlawed traitor.

It is related that within an hour after the proclamation was issued, his unhappy lady arrived at the English Camp with her husband's submission, but it was too late, the Rubicon was passed — the license for plunder and slaughter had gone forth — the English troops had begun to ravage the Principality and the doomed Earl setting up his standard at Ballynahowra in Cork had begun his fearful retaliations. A re-inforcement of Spaniards arriving at Fort-del-Ore in Smerwick Harbour, and a severe discomfiture which Lord Grey, the newly arrived Deputy, received from the O'Byrnes at Glenmalure in Wicklow, gave Desmond a momentary confidence which was however soon overcast by the capture of the western Fort, and the massacre of its garrison; his castles, one by one, were captured or surrendered, his brothers or principal followers killed or dispersed. Carrigafoyle, though defended by an Italian engineer, was stormed and the garrison put to the sword or hanged. The garrison of Askeaton, fearing the same fate, evacuated the fortress and all his strongholds being thus ultimately taken and either rased or garrisoned by the Queen's forces, he became a houseless wanderer, flitting from one fastness to another, sometimes escaping in his shirt, again hiding in December " up to his chin in a river under a bank,'"' and reduced from the command of the whole County Palatine of Kerry and the. leadership of hundreds of gentlemen of his name and race to a miserable following, at last narrowed down to some kerne and for his own immediate attendants to a "priest, two horsemen, and a boy, with whom he wandered about from one place to another." Doctor Saunders had some time before this sunk under the fatigues of this hard, wandering life and of all the Clans who once gathered around the Desmond only a few members of the 'Xy Sheehys and Mac Swyny tribes, a kind of hereditary body guard of the Palatine Earls, remained with him to the last. Closely pressed by his pursuers he was hunted from Limerick to Kerry, from the fastnesses of Aherlogh to those of Sliabh Loughra, with his indefatigable persecutor Captain Dowdall close upon his traces so that he was put to hard shifts for the very means of existence. If anything could add to the bitterness of the unfortunate Earl's fate, it must have been the fact, that his old hereditary rival and foe the "Thierna Dubh" Ormond, being come out of England as Lord General of Munster, was now the arbiter of his destiny. A feeling similar to that expressed by the Douglas in the old ballad of Chevy Chase, when wounded and dying he exclaimed in despair:

"Earl Percy sees me fall!"

must have been torture worse than death to that haughty chief who had once spoken so proudly over " the necks of the Butlers." As the toils grew closer round him however, he penned a humiliating and sorrowful letter to Ormond, ottering submission and sueing for that interview which he had so often evaded. This letter we give below and it otters a curious contrast to the following advices out of Munster:

"From Sir Henry Wallop to the Earl of Leicester"

CIomell 10th April 1583

Among the districts of our county which now lie denuded and desolate, but which in former times were clothed with natural wood and coppice is that long dreary tract ranging from Blennerville towards Brandon mountain. To this day the stools of holly and copsewood of oak, hazel, and birch, still surviving the destructive bite of browsing cattle, mountain sheep and goats — and though not allowed to grow, putting forth their shoots annually, attest the vigour with which they formerly flourished in the wood of Doiremore, now corrupted to Derrymore, while some gigantic trees yet remaining in the holly wood of Killballylahiffe¹ further to the west, afford proof that if proprietors would only afford common protective play, nature would quickly again clothe itself in the becoming dress of a natural forest without asking the aid of a "nursery man." This wooded district was during the Desmond wars, and long after, approachable from Tralee only by a ford over Tramore, (i.e. the big strand) the new bridge, as the bridge at Blennerville is even still sometimes called, was not then nor for many years after in existence. Whether the old Tramore ford was at the spot where the bridge has been erected, or on the firmer sands further down towards Tralee Spa, is not certain, but the ancient name of Blennerville, (before the late Sir Rowland Blennerhassett made it his residence and elevated it into a village called after his name,) being Cahirmoreaun i.e. the cahir on the great river, renders it probable that the passage was there, and that a ferry house or some such place was the nucleus round which the hamlet originally grew.

Note 1. Bingham writing in 1580 to Walsingham says: — "There are two notable places which the rebels give forth they will fortitie that do lye in the bay of Tralee, the one Ls called Bongoinder the other Killballyluthe winch places are naturally very strong as I doe leamc." Archdeacon Rowan considered that the ancient name of Boingoinder bad been altered to "Camp" a townland on the road from Trake to Castle Gregory. When clothed with holly and birch woods it must have been a place well fitted for a strong military position, an "Alma" (says the Archdeacon) "in miniature."

The unfortunate Earl of Desmond routed from near Kilmallock while he and his followers were "feasting on a stolen horse!" and closely hunted by his pursuers, was known to be lurking in the woods about Slieve Luachra and towards "the Dingell," where as yet no sufficient garrison had been placed since his followers had sacked and burnt it. This absence of any adequate force in the peninsula of Corcaguiny allowed the Earl to make forays in the district with impunity: and for some time he continued to levy contributions upon the inhabitants, " chiefly upon those who had placed themselves under English protection." At last, in an evil hour, in the early part of November 1583, he sent his marauders to bring him a prey from " Cahir-ni-Fahye " which I discover to be a farm in the heart of the tillage district of the " Magharees," the only spot in it according to my guide which "could rear a bawn of cows." From this farmstead Desmond's men made a clean sweep of "forty cows, ninecoppuls, (horses) with "household stuffe," and "stripped the owner his wife and children naked," a fact which even O'Daly the most partial of Geraldine chroniclers confesses and condemns. It is not very clear what the name of the plundered man was, popular tradition inaccurately tells us that the prey was driven from a widow, some speak of Moriarty, and some of O' Kelly, as the actual slayer of the Earl while Curry makes a jumble of both and speaks of " O'Kelly of Moriertha" as if the second name were a territorial designation. This confusion and uncertainty arises from dealing with Irish names without knowledge of their complications and intricacies, all that seems to us certain is, that the plundered man was named "Maurice Mac Owen" or "Maurice the son of Owen." He may have been himself a Moriarty, and was undoubtedly brother in law to Owen Mac Donell O'Moriertagh to whose deposition we have before referred, and we now give the document at length, as a relation of the slaying of the Great Earl the accuracy of which there seems no reason to question, for the date of the paper being within sixteen days of the events deposed to, appears some security for the correctness of this very natural narrative:—

[11th November 1583] In the dawning of the day on Mundaye, the 11th of November, they put themselves in order to set upon the traytors in their cabins; this examinate with his brother Donnil with their kerne broke the foreward, (went first) and appointed the souldiers to keepe the rereward, saving that one Daniel O'Kelly, a souldier, which had but his sword and target stood in the forewarde with them; they all making a greate crye entered the cabbin, where the Earle lay, and this Deponent ran round throwe the cabbin after the Earle's companie which fledde to the woode, and at his return backe to the cabbin doore, the Earle being stroken by one of the companie by whom certayne hee knoweth not, (but that alle the footemenne and souldiers were together within the cabbin.) hee discovered himselfe sayinge, "I am the Earle of Desmond (age 50). Save my lyfe!" To whom this Deponent answered, — "thou hast killed thyself long agone, and noue thou shalt be prisoner to the Queen's Majestic and to the Earl of Ormonde, Lord Gcnerall of Munster." whereon this Deponent took him by his arme being cutte, and willed the Earle to make spcede else they would carrye awayc his headc seeing the traytours drew very neare to have him rescued. Whereupon Donnil Mae Donnil sayde, " I will carry him on my backe awhile and so shall every one of you;" Donnil carried him a good while and being weary he put him ofTe, the traytors being at hande all the companie refused to carry him anie furtherfrom Castle Mang sent after the track declared they would proceed no further, but Deponent promised them "two beeves of the prey" if they succeeded in recovering it. The men agreeing, the party went forward, and the track was followed by daylight to Ballyore, and by moonlight toward Glamiageeiitie at Slieve Loughra, when the Deponent and his elder brother got up above the glenne to view whether they might see anie fire in the woode, or heare anie stirre, and having come to the heighte over the glin they saw a fire underneath them. Donnil went to spy and returned reporting there were some persons there, but no cattel; they agreed to wait until the preye was found with them. In the dawning of the day on Mundaye, the nth of November, they put themselves in order to set upon the traytors in their cabins; this examinate with his brother Donnil with their kerne broke the foreward, (went first) and appointed the souldiers to kecpe the rereward, saving that one Daniel O'Kelly, a souldier, which had but his sword and target stood in the forewarde with them; they all making a greate cryc entered the cabbin, where the Earle lay, and this Deponent ran round throwe the cabbin after the Earle's companie which fledde to the woode, and at his return backe to the cabbin doore, the Earle being stroken by one of the companie by whom certayne hee knoweth not, (but that alle the footemenne and souldiers were together within the cabbin.) hee discovered himselfe sayinge, " I am the Earle of Desmond.' Save my lyfe!" To whom this Deponent answered, — "thou hast killed thyself long agone, and noue thou shalt be prisoner to the Queen's Majestic and to the Earl of Ormonde, Lord Gcnerall of Munster." whereon this Deponent took him by his arme being cutte, and willed the Earle to make speede else they would carrye awayc his headc seeing the traytours drew very neare to have him rescued. Whereupon Donnil Mae Donnil sayde, " I will carry him on my backe awhile and so shall every one of you;" Donnil carried him a good while and being weary he put him offe, the traytors being at hande all the companie refused to carry him anie further considering the eminent danger they stood in, the traytours drawing ncarc. Whereat this Deponent willed the souldier, Daniel CPKelly, to cut off the Erie's head for that they could not apply to fight and to carry him away, to whose direction Kelly obeyed, drawing out his sword and striking off the Erie's head, which they brought to Castle Mang to be kept there, till they were ready to take it to the Lord General. Daniel OKelly being examined testified to the above narrative, and stated that he himself wounded the Erie in the cabbin. Saide before the Right Honourable the Erie of Ormonde, the Bishop of Ossory and the Sovereign of Kilkenny."