Fugitives! (29 page)

HISTORICAL NOTES – Fact and Fiction

‘Until it was midnight and the stars were out Tyrone stood at the gunwale watching for Con,' wrote Seán O'Faolain in his wonderful book,
The Great O'Neill
. ‘Who was Con?' I asked myself, ‘and why was Hugh O'Neill waiting for him?'

That was where this story began. Most of the time history shows itself slowly, piece by piece, but then, occasionally, it can burst out and come alive, and we realise that these people were real, living, breathing and signing their names! Above are two copies of Hugh O'Neill's signatures. Think of him, as Sinéad saw him, quill in hand, writing a letter to King James King of England.

Because Hugh O'Neill is one of the great men of Irish history, we know what he looked like and what sort of person he was. On the other hand, we know almost nothing about Con, so I had to imagine him. His father had red hair, so I give Con red hair. When Hugh O'Neill was taken to England as a boy he was dubbed ‘that rascal horse-boy,' so I have imagined Con, like his father, getting up
to mischief, and being a fine pony rider. The other children in the book, Fion, James/Séamus and Sinéad, are made up, but they live in a world of real castles, wars and intrigues. You can visit many of the places I describe (see the map in the front of the book) and, like me, try to imagine them as they once were.

As Norman castles were built to similar designs, you will be able to recognise many of the features that were familiar to Sinéad and the others, in any castle you may visit. Near the door you should find the guard room – there may even be a murder hole through which one could shoot attackers at the door. The spiral stairs usually start about here and you can trace their climb from the slit windows. Inside you can count the floors from the holes where the beams were let into the walls. If you are allowed to climb to the roof, you can lean on the battlements like Uncle Hugh and Sinéad. You will, however, have to imagine the now vanished town of thatched houses and workshops that once clustered about the castle. Go to the rear of the castle and you may see where the garderobes (toilets) jutted out. If you had lived in the fifteenth century you would have got used to the strong castle smells.

Castle life was crowded; the windows were tiny, so it was quite dark inside. Light came from flaring torches, candles, and tiny rush lights. In summertime, people lived outside as much as possible. In times of danger, however, the family slept on the top floor where it was safest.

The Pale, the boundary that so fascinated young Con, was indeed a wall in places, just as Con imagined. More often, however, it was little more than a bank with a hedge on top. It stretched from Dublin right up to Roches Castle, (which you should visit) where the children were so nearly captured. Nevertheless it was an
important boundary. Inside the Pale lived the English, and people who were prepared to live under English rule. Here, for example, you would have to attend a Protestant church every Sunday, so Catholics were excluded. Outside the Pale, however, the native Irish and the old Norman families could attend Mass on Sundays, and live under a mixture of English and Irish (Brehon) laws. The Norman families kept closer links to English ways than would the native Irish. Sinéad was christened Jane until Uncle Hugh gave her the Irish version of her name. Likewise, when James changed his name to the Irish, Séamus, this was symbolic for him.

Our story takes place between the actual dates of the Flight of the Earls, starting on Saturday, 8 September 1607 when Hugh O'Neill bade a tearful farewell to his old friend Garret Moore at Mellifont, through to Friday, 14 September when the boat sailed. I had to fit the children's search for Con to this timetable. I tried to do the same with the weather. We know that Hugh and Catherine struggled through heavy rain while crossing the Sperrin mountains. So this is the rain that Sinéad hears beating on the O'Brolchain tent that same night. Likewise, the storm that I have driving the French ship,
St Lucia
, into Portsalon, was at that time driving O'Neill's ship past Arranmore island, in Donegal, where we know he had hoped to stop for supplies.

At this time there were three main groups of people all fighting for Irish soil. First the ancient Irish, like Hugh O'Neill. Secondly the Normans, like our de Cashel family, who had come to Ireland four hundred years earlier and were now as Irish as the Irish. And third
the English, who were pushing out from the Pale, taking Irish and Norman land and forcing Catholics to become Protestants. (Note: the Normans are sometimes referred to as the ‘Old English', but I use ‘Norman' in this book.)

Since the time of the Norman invasion of 1169, English kings had been trying to conquer Ireland. But the Irish clans were strong and warlike, and the invaders made little progress. Then King Henry VIII made a clever offer, namely, that if the Irish chiefs surrendered, he would grant or ‘lend' them back their land, give them English titles, and protect them from their enemies. Many of the Irish chiefs fell for this offer. Henry called this
Surrender and Re-grant
. However, under Irish law the land belongs to the clan, not to the chief! As the English anticipated, the clans now turned on their own chiefs. This was an early example of
Divide and Rule
(making your enemies fight among themselves, so that they don't fight you). Some of the great Norman/Irish families, however, rebelled against the English. In the Desmond Rebellion that followed, huge tracts of Munster were made uninhabitable and thousands of Irish and Norman lives were lost. Land that was not grabbed was ‘planted,' that is, given to English settlers to farm.

When Hugh O'Neill was a young boy of nine, an English lord offered to foster him to his family in England. In this way Hugh got a good education and learned English customs and manners. Not surprisingly, when he was twenty-one years old, he found himself fighting on the side of the English, helping to put down the Desmond rebellion.

Nobody knows when Hugh realised that the English were not just destroying his country, but were threatening his own lands in
Ulster. Gradually Hugh gathered the Ulster clans. Then, in 1595, he joined forces with his great friend Red Hugh O'Donnell and started a war against the English that was to last for eight years. Not since the time of Brian Boru had Ireland been so united. O'Neill's greatest victory was at the Battle of the Yellow Ford (near where the children crossed the Blackwater river); his greatest defeat was at the Battle of Kinsale, where a small Spanish army had landed to help him. (It was here that I have Sinéad's father getting his wounded knee.) After this defeat, the clans began to break up and many, like the O'Cahans and MacSweeneys, sided with the English. Though O'Neill was pardoned, Chichester continued to hound him, and hunt down his people in Ulster. Eventually, the only thing O'Neill could do was to leave Ireland to get help from abroad. When he heard that a ship had arrived for him, and was waiting for him at Rathmullan, he sent out word to find his son Con and bring him to the ship. Con never did arrive.

These were ferocious times; the Irish as well as the English were capable of inhuman acts. However, the English invasion and conquest of Ireland was not simply a matter of England imposing new overlords on the native Irish, as the Normans had done, or changing the rule of law, but was achieved by extermination. Vast numbers of men, women and children were killed either by the sword or by hunger. The modern word, genocide, should not be used lightly, but the English wholesale slaughter of people whom they claimed as their own subjects was inexcusable. There were, however, many English officials and people who were opposed to these methods, and who tried to make peace and to mediate, but their voices were not heard.

The conquest of Ireland is of world significance. This was the birth of the colonial era, and for the next four hundred years the
methods of colonisation developed in Ireland would be used by the colonial powers in their colonies throughout the world.

Within ten years of the Flight of the Earls, Ulster would be divided up and given to largely decent, hard-working Scottish farmers who had no part in the dreadful deeds that had gone before them, and indeed knew little about them. The Plantation of Ulster was then complete.

When Sinéad is in despair at having to marry Bonmann, Father reminds her that her grandfather had signed away his lands to King Henry VIII (
Surrender and Re-grant
) so the castle didn't really belong to them. We have several examples of
Divide and Rule,
one of the most successful was Fenton's success in turning James against Fion, which of course resulted in their duel. On a larger scale, we have Chichester fomenting trouble between Sir Malachy and Hugh O'Neill by suggesting that Sir Malachy go out to steal his friend O'Neill's cattle. If Chichester had taken James as a hostage, he might have fostered him, like young Hugh, in order to indoctrinate him. Or, he might have thrown him into Dublin Castle and demanded a ransom that could have ruined Sir Malachy. It would have been a great temptation for Sir Malachy to marry off Sinéad to the wealthy and powerful Bonmann.

In the fifteenth century, childhood was over at the age of fourteen; life for the Castle children would soon change. In James's case, his future would be centred on the castle which he would soon inherit. Fion's future, in contrast, would have centred on shifting herds of
cattle which he could spend his life defending from his neighbours. In Sinéad's case, she would be preparing a trousseau of clothes and linen for a marriage that her parents would arrange for her (hopefully with her consent).

Fostering a son to another chief or family helped the young person's education but also helped bind families and allies together. I like to think that O'Neill's fostering of Con to the O'Brolchains was to give him the freedom he clearly needed. The bonds between fosterlings ran deep, so quarrels between foster brothers were serious. When James tried to steal O'Neill's cattle he was betraying not just O'Neill, but his own foster brother, Fion.

Duels were used to decide quarrels, most of which would end with surrender, not death. Therefore some ritual was necessary. The English would have shaken hands, but here something less English and more symbolic is needed. The ‘victor's touch' is my invention.

Haystacks belongs to the Gaelic order of poets and lawyers. They came from privileged families and were made welcome wherever they went. No one wants a mocking song made about them. In this book Haystacks has attached himself to Hugh O'Neill and his family. He doesn't tell the children what to do, but encourages them to make their own decisions. He knows that the MacSweeneys trace their family back to Niall of the Nine Hostages, so he uses the story of Niall to shame The MacSweeney, the clan leader, into releasing the children.

The
Song of Amergin
, the poem that Haystacks recites for Sinead, is thought to be the oldest poem to have been written down in Irish. Amergin is said to have been a Milesian prince who came to Ireland before the time of Christ.

Everyone agrees that Hugh O'Neill was a man of great charm. Hardened British soldiers like Mountjoy, who granted him his pardon after the Battle of Kinsale, fell under his spell. He was very emotional and would burst into tears when he felt strongly about something. He was also a brilliant soldier. He was married four times. When his second wife Siobhán died, he promptly eloped with Mabel Bagenal, the twenty-year-old sister of his arch enemy Sir Henry Bagenal. Sinéad would have remembered this story when Uncle Hugh pretended to elope with her. Hugh had grown-up children from previous marriages. Two of his younger children, John and Brian, were already on the ship at Rathmullan, and Catherine, his fourth wife, was pregnant. Nevertheless he took the risk of waiting for Con.

Chichester could act as the perfect gentleman, at the same time as a ruthless soldier. A portrait of Sir Arthur shows him with a small, pointed beard, a downward-sweeping moustache and penetrating eyes. His deep hatred of O'Neill stemmed from when his brother was killed in a skirmish with one of O'Neill's allies. First under Lord Deputy Mountjoy, and later as Lord Deputy himself, Chichester developed a strategy of death and starvation in O'Neill's territory. He built a network of forts there and used these to spread death and destruction – anybody found alive, man, woman or child, was put to the sword; houses were burned, crops destroyed, and cattle taken, so that there was neither food nor shelter. Fion tells this to Sinéad in his famine nightmare. Today Chichester would be tried for war crimes. He had an extensive network of spies, like Fenton. He also persuaded a number of Irish chiefs to come over to the
English cause, but then abandoned them when their usefulness was over; O'Cahan, for example, ended his life in the Tower of London.