The Flight of the Earls.
Author: McCAVITT, John.
Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2002. x, 277 pages. Hardback.
Until the end of the sixteenth century, Ulster was the most Gaelic part of Ireland. Fifty years later, it was the least Gaelic part. In 1607 Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and other Gaelic chieftains fled to the continent and settled in Rome. Their lands were declared forfeit to the crown and were cleared for the plantation of Ulster that followed.
Why did O’Neill and those other chieftains flee? John McCavitt’s outstanding history gives us the answers. O’Neill had rebelled against the crown in the 1590s, had eventually been defeated at the Battle of Kinsale and had reached a nervous but secure peace settlement with the English crown. He was left in possession of his lands and was not formally threatened by London. However, crown officials in Dublin - especially the grasping Sir Arthur Chichester - maintained a campaign of harassment against O’Neill and his followers that played no small part in driving them from their ancestral lands.
Throughout the remainder of his life, O’Neill intended to return. He never did. His flight was one of the decisive moments in Irish history. It opened a way for the Ulster plantation, one of the truly crucial events in the formation of modern Ireland.
ISBN: 0717130479
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