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"For we are so distracted and tossed about on the most turbulent waves and by the confusion of all our affairs that there is no leisure for writing.  The current of present events, and the accumulation of many calamities deter our people from the attempt."  (Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear on undertaking his Compendium). Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear published his Compendium of the History of Catholic Ireland in Lisbon in 1621.  Don Philip was born on Dursey Island.  As a child he had received religious instruction from Donagh O'Cronin who was martyred at Cork in 1601.  In 1602, as a boy of ten years he was sent to Spain with his cousin, the son of The O'Sullivan Bear.  He was educated at Santiago de Compstela.  King Philip III granted him a commission in the Spanish Navy.  Don Philip died in 1660.

Elizabeth Tudor reigned over England from 1558-1603, and her reign was concurrent with that of King Donal IX in Desmond (1558-1596).  In 1560, Elizabeth was declared Supreme Governor of the Church in Ireland.  Draconian laws made attendance at Protestant services compulsory.  Those wishing to hold position in the government or church had to take an oath denying the spiritual authority of the Pope.  Despite these measures, and the hunting and persecution of priests and bishops, the population adhered to Catholicism.  Munster was specifically selected for Tudor conquest.

The following account of the state of Ireland under Elizabeth Tudor was written by Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear and is taken from his Compendium of the History of Catholic Ireland as translated from the original Latin by Matthew J. Byrne:

"There now remains to be told what befell during the forty-three years of Elizabeth's rule.  Not even Munster enjoyed immunity from English injustice.  The Fitzgeralds of Munster were provoked to take up arms there.  The dominion of this family through the influence and favour of the English kings, and constant aggression on their neighbours, had in a short time grown to that extent that the Earl of Desmond (Fitzgerald) was regarded by the English themselves as a powerful subject.  For although some of the old Irish chiefs had greater resources, they were counted by the English not in the number of subjects but of enemies, although they paid tribute.  But as power generally excites the hatred of many, so with this family, great enmity and hostility entered its territories, and principally on the part of the chiefs of Clancarthy, Thomond, and Muskerry, who treasured recollections of wrongs inflicted by the Geraldines fighting for the English crown and for the increasing and pushing of their own dominions.  On this account there was a standing feud in which, amidst the frequent clash of arms, blood was with great bitterness freely shed on both sides."

In 1569, the Desmond Confederation, a league for the defence of Ireland and the Faith, was established by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, who took the title of 'Captain of Desmond', while his cousin Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, was being held captive in the Tower of London.  The leading members of the Confederation were, apart from Fitzmaurice, Donal IX MacCarthy Mór, the Earls of Thomond, Clanrickarde and Kildare, as well as some of the Butlers of Ormonde.  Over the next three years the rebellion raged across Munster.  In 1569, James Fitzmaurice laid siege to the city of Cork.  However, the soldiers of this Confederation were poorly equipped for sustained warfare.  The Tudor army under Sir Henry Sidney attacked the castles and lands of the leading rebels.  The chiefs were thus forced to abandon James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald and return to defend their own territories.  The coalition disintegrated in 1572 following various vicissitudes.  All the prominent members submitted to the English Queen 'on terms'.  Around this time, Earl Gerald Fitzgerald of Desmond was released from captivity in England:

"James Fitzgerald (James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald), the cousin of Earl Gerald Fitzgerald, refused to recognise the queen's authority.  He routed the royal forces at Kilmallock town.  Soon after James' rising (the First Desmond Rebellion) was calmed down a war broke out between Earl Gerald and Donal MacCarthy, Chief of Clancarthy and Earl of Valencia, and at the River Maine a battle was fought which was rather a slaughter than a fight; for while some illustrious gentlemen of MacCarthy's fell, and amongst others Murrough and Eugene McSweeney, whose assistance James had formerly employed against the heretics (English); of Fitzgerald's forces only Colus, brother of Maurice, succumbed.  Shortly after, James, thinking that on account of the English he would be very unsafe in Ireland, crossed over to Spain with his wife and two young children."

While in Spain, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald sought the assistance of King Philip II and Pope Gregory XIII for the Catholic cause in Ireland.  Only the Pope listened to his pleas.  He returned to Ireland in July 1579 with 800 soldiers, six small ships, and with the Papal Keys inscribed on his banner.  He put into port first in Dingle.  From Dingle he sailed he sailed to Smerwick Harbour and set up headquarters on a promontory which he called Fort Del Oro.  This was a jibe at Elizabeth Tudor.  In 1577, a ship from Martin Frobisher's bullion fleet was wrecked on the rocks beneath the headland.  It had been laden with "gold" from North America.  Unfortunately for Elizabeth this "gold" proved to be iron pyrites or "fool's gold".  Although James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald was not aided by his cousin, Earl Gerald Fitzgerald of Desmond, he was joined by Thady MacCarthy, Lord of Coshmang, who supplied eight horses and eighteen foot.  Eventually, he was also joined by Sir James Sussex Fitzgerald and Sir John Fitzgerald, the brothers of Earl Gerald, and they took the town of Tralee.  Unfortunately, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the 'Captain of Desmond' and best hope for the cause of Ireland, was fatally wounded in a skirmish with the Burkes at Barrington Bridge, Limerick.  Apparently, Theobald Burke, hearing that James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald was encamped near a stream on his lands, rode out to confront him.  He saw James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald in his characteristic yellow tunic riding down the opposite bank of the stream.  James raising his banner, shouted "Papa abhu", i.e. "for the Pope."  Burke shouted back "God save the Queen and devil take James Fitzmaurice."  A shot was fired at James by one of Burke's musketeers, and a bullet lodged in his lung.  James, enraged by the wound, killed Theobald Burke, Lord of Castleconnell, with a blow of his sword.  James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald died of his wound six hours later.  The Second Desmond Rebellion erupted soon afterwards and this was led by Earl Gerald Fitzgerald of Desmond.

The infamous Massacre of Smerwick, in which Captain Walter Raleigh participated, took place one year after the death of James.  In Novemeber 1580, the Italian troops holding Fort Del Oro (Dún an Óir) for the Geraldines surrendered on being offered safe passage by Viceroy Grey.  This promise was broken as soon as the Italians had surrendered, and the entire company was butchered by the English.

Subsequently, MacCarthy Mór's country and Muskerry were attacked by the forces of the Earl of Desmond, Gerald Fitzgerald:

James (Sussex) Fitzgerald, brother of the Earl, having gone to ravage Muskerry on account of an old grudge, was taken by Cormac MacCarthy, son of Thady, chief of Muskerry, and, being sent to the English at Cork, was put to death (1580).  Another James Fitzgerald, son of John, uncle of the earl, was slain in an encounter by Brian O'Brien, an Irish gentleman.  Earl Gerald, ravaging MacCarthy More's country had, with a few men, halted at Aghadoe, while his brother John was making an incursion, when Zouch, an Englishman, coming out of the town of Dingle with sixty horse and a troop of foot following, surrounded the Earl unawares, and encompassing the houses of the unfortified town, slew Maelmurray MacSweeney, a captain, Thady MacCarthy, Lord of Coshmang, and David Fitzgerald, gentleman.  The Earl himself, half asleep fled to his castle, whence, sallying forth, having got together some troops, and following Zouch he rescued the captive women and spoils from him."  Earl Gerald Fitzgerald of Desmond carried on the war for another year.  Finally in extremes of poverty, and after several months hiding out in the woods and wild places, the great Earl Gerald of Desmond was betrayed.  He was surprised in a wood at Glenagenty and murdered by O'Moriarty, a small farmer who had been robbed by the Earl's followers.  The year was 1583, and the power of the Geraldines was broken forever in Munster.  Their vast tracts of lands were handed over to the 'undertakers', i.e. those English who undertook to settle the lands.  The professional soldiers or gallowglasses, the MacSweeneys and MacSheehys were displaced from their lands and swept aside into poverty.  Although the Desmond Rebellion ruined the Geraldines, their traditional enemies, the MacCarthy clan, still retained their power.

The persecution of the Catholic population at this time was severe and unremitting:

"In the Munsters, also the English did not fail to utterly destroy generous men, with barbarous brutality, thirsting for human and Catholic blood.  Donough MacCarthy, surnamed the White, an Irishman well known amongst his own people for his hospitality and generosity, entertained the English President of the Munsters not only in a sumptuous and splendid banquet, but also had his servants perform dances and sports.  A few days afterwards the President ordered his host, when he came to Cork to be put to death, alleging that an honest and frugal man could not support so large a retinue and would have no need of so many servants unless for robbery, rapine, and other illegal practices (of which there was no proof)."

"Nor, should another Protestant device be omitted, namely, the plan of laying waste the Catholic's lands, towns, crops, and cattle with fire and sword, so that those whom they could not overcome by valour, they conquered by famine and want, and sometimes they did not spare even the lands of their own subjects or of the Irish of the English party, destroying their corn and cattle and forbidding cultivation, lest these being captured might furnish supplies to enable the Catholics to carry on the war."

Brass coin was, by order of the Queen, sent to Ireland in 1601, by which on the one hand the Queen replenished the exhausted resources of her army, and on the other withdrew Irish gold and silver.  As soon as the war was finished this brass money became valueless, to the great injury of the Irish and the Queen's tax-payers, especially merchants.  Indeed the protestants held that the Irish War would never have been finished while the Irish had victuals or gold or silver to procure them, and that their own army should be supplied from England.  These were the reasons why so great a number of ruined Irish inundated foreign nations, especially Spain and France.  The Catholics might have been able to find a remedy for all these evils, had it not been that they were destroyed from within by another and greater internal disease.  For most of the families, clans, and towns of the Catholic chiefs, who took up the defence of the Catholic Faith, were divided into different factions, each having different leaders and following lords who were fighting for the estates and chieftaincies.  The less powerful of them joined the English party in the hope of gaining the chieftainship of their clans, if the existing chiefs were removed from their position and property, and the English craftily held out that hope to them.  This hope turned Con and Henry, sons of the chief Shane O'Neill, and Art, son of Turlough, against O'Neill.  The same greed for chieftaincy prompted Niall O'Donnell, surnamed Garve, to effect the destruction of Tyrconnell by levying war against O'Donnell.  The same ambition set Thady O'Rourke against The O'Rourke, his brother.  The same lust excited the English Maguire against The Maguire.  Why should I narrate the dispute between Florence, Dermot and Daniel as to the chieftaincy of Clancarty?  Why should I recall how Earl James Fitzgerald was stripped of his resources by the faction of the other James?  Why repeat six hundred examples of the same thing?  For as the Holy Evangelist has it: 'every Kingdom divided against itself shall be destroyed.'  Indeed my wonder is how it (Ireland) should have so long withstood so many divisions, so many wars, so incendiarism."

"At this time Daniel MacCarthy, Chief of Clancarty and Earl of Valentia (King Donal IX), more anxious for peace than war, and growing old, tried in every way to retain the friendship of the English, and being given to sumptuous banquets and magnificent entertainments, he encumbered his ample patrimony with lavish expenses.  The English having correctly gauged the man's disposition feared no obstruction from him to persecution, provided only they allowed him to live as a Catholic.  Two other powerful chiefs of Munster (with shame be it said) fell under the contagion of heresy.  Yet, although we have shown above, there was little to hinder truculent persecution, a certain fear of the Irish chiefs haunted the heretics when they attacked the Catholic faith, after they had extirpated it in England."

Don Philip describes the fate of the Spanish Armada sent by Philip II of Spain to invade England in 1588:

"Philip II, that most far-seeing King of the Spains, pitying the misfortune and the darkened state of England, over which, having married Queen Mary, he had reigned for a short time, got together a splendid fleet and valiant army under the command of the Duke of Mitina Sidonia, and dispatched them to that island, where undoubtedly they would have destroyed the deadly pest of heresy in its very cradle, if they had landed safely.  But our sins rising against us, in the year of our Redeemer 1588, partly by the skill of the heretics, but principally by a storm which arose, the fleet was scattered far and wide and portion of it returned to Spain; part caught by the storm between England and Belgium was carried around Scotland and Ireland; while a greater part of it was wrecked.  Some ships were driven by the storm on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, and these striking on jutting rocks and sinking, had some of their men drowned, while some narrowly escaped by swimming or scrambling.  The English killed such of the strangers as they caught."

In 1594, war broke out in Ulster.  Hugh Maguire and Cormac O'Neill inflicted a famous defeat on Tudor troops a Béal Atha na mBrioscadh, 'The Ford of the Biscuits'.  Following this battle, the Castle of Enniskillen was surrendered to Red hugh O'Donnell.  Don Philip continues his narrative:

"The siege being over, O'Donnell remembering the cruelty with which the English had thrown women, old men, and infants from the bridge at Enniskillen, with all his forces invaded Connaught, which Richard Bingham held ground down under heretical tyranny.  In his raids extending far and wide he destroyed the English colonists and settlers, put them to flight, and slew them, sparing no male between 16 and 60 years old who did not know how to speak the Irish language.  He returned to Tyrconnell laden with the spoils of the Protestants.  Those who had not been destroyed by fire and sword, being stripped of their goods, retired to England, railing with bitter curses against those who had brought them into Ireland."

In the winter of 1596, while the Fifteen Year War was raging in Ulster, Connaught and Leinster, King Donal IX MacCarthy Mór died:

"Whilst the events we have so far recorded were taking place in Ulster, Leinster, and Connaught, MacCarthy More died leaving Helena (Ellen), his daughter betrothed to Florence, son of MacCarthy Reagh, and they disputed with the Queen of England the deceased's estates.  Moreover, Daniel, an illegitimate son of More's considered himself no ways unworthy of his father's estate and that his sister Helena should not be preferred to himself, but he did not trust his case to the English, whom he did not expect would be fair judges towards him.  However it is suspected that he would have promised them his support were it not that O'Neill was assisting him to obtain his father's cheiftaincy."

"Others also were ill-affected towards the English both on the general ground of religion and for personal grievances.  However, all enjoyed the most profound peace and were then, on account of present difficulties less worried by the English than at other times, and the Munstermen were very little inclined for rebellion with a few exceptions and these possessing little power or resources were not able to do anything worth mentioning.  Thus Munster had a good supply of provisions and supplied such of thier own, and many of Connaught and some of Leinster, who came looking for victuals when their own countries had been laid waste.  Their President, John Norris, had died, and his brother, Thomas Norris, a trained soldier, succeeded him."

Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear was about twenty nine years of age when his Compendium was published in 1621.  As a boy in Ireland he had heard many first-hand accounts of the stirring and chaotic events of that turbulent era.  We leave the final word in this very brief summary to Don Philip himself:

"However, I resolved to save from oblivion and destruction the fame of the greatest and most distinguished Irishmen, who displayed great virtue, both in fighting for the Catholic faith and in peace.  Which demands both greater ability and leisure than is mine, tossed about as I am, in the general wreck of my fatherland."

1. Berleth, R., The Twilight Lords.  Published by Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1994.
2. O'Sullivan Bear, Don Philip, Ireland Under Elizabeth (A History of Ireland in the Reign of Elizabeth).  Translated and edited by M. J. Byrne from the Compendium of the History of Catholic Ireland (Lisbon, 1621).  Published by Sealy, Bryers and Walker, Dublin, 1903.

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