Irish History and the Irish QuestionSmith, Goldwin
History
Irish History and the Irish Question
Smith, Goldwin
Ireland -- Politics and government; Irish question
rule of the Roman Church, but most of their churches, monasteries, and
hermitages are dismantled by the English soldiers, and by their local
partisans, who are as bad as themselves. In short there is no order nor
justice in the country, and every one does that which is right in his own
eyes."
"Savages" Cuellar calls the natives; what but savages could they be when
not only had all the means of civilization been withheld from them, but
they were hunted like beasts of prey? That the women are "great workers
and housewives in their way" is a redeeming feature in the picture. The
whole land, English and Irish alike, was a wreck. The secretary of a lord
deputy reports that the people had no conscience, but committed crimes
freely; that they even changed wives among themselves; that bridges were
falling down, churches roofless; there were no charities, no schools; law
was jobbery, and the judicial bench was filled with ignorance; every lord
hated the restraints of law and made himself an Irish chief; and disorders
were as great among English soldiers as among Irish kernes.
The third rebellion, and the most formidable of all, was that of the Earl
of Tyrone, head of the O'Neills of Ulster. It stirred the general forces
of revolt, national and religious, beyond Ulster, in Connaught and
elsewhere. Tyrone gave his movement distinctly the character of a holy
war, and received aid from Spain. Unlike Desmond, he was an able leader.
He gained a victory over the English at the Yellow Ford which filled
Dublin with panic. To put him down, Elizabeth sent her favourite Essex,
with forces greater than her parsimony allowed to an ordinary deputy.
Essex went forth with great pomp and amidst high expectations. But he
totally lacked steadiness of character and policy. He failed and went home
to run mad courses and die on the scaffold, faintly recalling the Irish
history of Richard II.
Essex was succeeded by Mountjoy, able, iron-willed, and ruthless, who made
it a war of extermination and devastation. The Spaniards brought tardy aid
to their Irish allies. They landed in force at Kinsale, and for a moment
the fortune of war seemed to waver, but it soon inclined again to the side
of the deputy and England. The force of the rebellion was broken, and
Tyrone was compelled to surrender.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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