------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V Conditions in Ulster Before the Revolt of O’Neill THE first jury “trial” in Ulster was that of Hugh Roe MacMahon, chieftain of Monaghan, who became entangled with Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam in some one-sided “alliance,” and, failing in some slight particular to keep his side of the contract, was “tried” by twelve soldiers in Elizabeth’s pay, condemned to death and shot at his own door. This and other brutal murders, attested by the English historian, Moryson, filled the north with rage, and the very name of English “law” became a menace and a terror throughout the length and breadth of Ulster. From that bloody period dates the hatred and distrust of English “justice” which still survives among the Irish people. Indeed, instances of judicial murder, almost rivaling that of MacMahon Roe, might be cited by living Irishmen as having occurred within their own experience. Elizabeth’s deputy, Fitzwilliam, who was a consummate scoundrel and jobber in bribes, and would have made a champion modern “boodle alderman,” succeeded in making the very name of “shire,” or county, land detested in Ireland. When he informed McGuire, the bold chief of Fermanagh, that he was about to send a sheriff into his “county” to “empanel juries,” the chief answered grimly, “Let him come; but, first, let me know his eric (price of his blood), so that, if my people should cut off his head, I may levy it on the country.” This was the Irish method under the Brehon law. No sheriff appeared in Fermanagh for many a year after McGuire’s significant statement. Red Hugh O’Donnell continued to make things exceedingly lively for the English garrisons in Ulster and Connaught, and made them take to the cover of their strong places after nearly every encounter. Near Inniskillen, the gallant Hugh McGuire, aided by a small body of the clansmen of Tyrone, who came “on the quiet,” under the command of O’Neill’s brother, Cormac, met a large English escort, who were conveying supplies to the town, to which Red Hugh O’Donnell had laid siege, at a ford of the river Erne. The English suffered a total rout, and their bread-wagons having been lost in the current, or overturned in the shallows, the spot is known to this day as Bael-atha-an-Biscoid—in English “the Ford of Biscuits.” Red Hugh, who had gone to Derry to meet a body of the Antrim Scots, who were coming to his aid, was necessarily absent when the battle was fought, and, on hearing of the victory, remarked he was “sorry he had not been in the fight, as he would have prevented the escape of so many of the English.” The latter began to perceive, by this time, that they had to “strip for the combat” in earnest if they meant to retain their foothold on the borders of Ulster.