# Flight of the Earls

On 14 September 1607, Irish earls Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, departed Rathmullan in Ireland for mainland Europe, accompanied by their families, household staff, followers and fellow Irish nobles, numbering about ninety people. The earls were patriarchs of the two most powerful clans in Ulster (the O'Neill and O'Donnell clans), and their permanent exile is seen to symbolise the end of Gaelic Irish society. This event is now known as the Flight of the Earls (Irish: Imeacht na nIarlaí), though historians such as Micheline Kerney Walsh have criticised that name.
Both earls fought against the English Crown in the Nine Years' War, which ended with their surrender in 1603. Although the earls managed to retain their lands and titles, hostility towards them from English politicians gradually increased over time. The flight was seemingly a snap decision; its exact motivation is unclear and is the subject of debate. They may have been conspiring against the government, and their flight could have been an attempt to evade arrest. The earls intended to reach Habsburg Spain, which had allied with the Irish confederacy during the war, but were turned away by Philip III for fear of violating the recent Treaty of London. The refugees spent time in Leuven in the Spanish Netherlands, where many of the passengers left their young children to be educated at St Anthony's College. The earls arrived in Rome on 29 April 1608, and were granted small pensions by Pope Paul V. Tyrconnell died of a fever three months later. Tyrone repeatedly discussed plans to return to Ireland and retake his lands, but he became ill and died in 1616 before doing so. Most of the passengers on the flight never returned to Ireland. The flight was declared as treasonous by James VI and I and the earls' titles were forefeited, which led to the acquisition of the earls' lands as part of the Plantation of Ulster.

## Name

The event was first named as a "flight" in an 1868 book by Reverend Charles Patrick Meehan. In Irish, the neutral term Imeacht is usually used i.e. the Departure of the Earls. The term 'Flight' is translated 'Teitheadh na nIarlaí' and is sometimes seen.
Historians disagree to what extent the earls wanted to start a war with Spanish help to re-establish their positions, or whether they accepted exile as the best way of coping with their recent loss of status since the Treaty of Mellifont in 1603. Meehan argued that the earls' tenants wanted a new war: "Withal, the people of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would return with forces to evict the evictors, but the farther they advanced into this agreeable perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear."

## Background to the exile

From 1593, Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Hugh Roe O'Donnell of Tyrconnell led an Irish confederacy in resistance to the Tudor conquest of Ireland—this conflict is known as the Nine Years' War. After the confederacy's defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, Hugh Roe O'Donnell traveled to Spain to seek support from Philip III. Unsuccessful, he died in Spain from a sudden illness and was succeeded by his younger brother Rory O'Donnell.
The O'Neills and O'Donnells retained their lands and titles, although with much-diminished extent and authority. However, the countryside was laid bare in a campaign of destruction in 1602, which induced famine in 1603. Tyrone was pardoned under the terms of the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 and submitted to the crown.
When King James VI and I took the English throne in 1603, he quickly proceeded to issue pardons for the Irish lords and their rebel forces. Already reigning as king of Scotland, he had a better understanding of the advantages from working with local chiefs in the Scottish Highlands. However, as in other Irish lordships, the 1603 peace involved O'Neill losing substantial areas of land to his cousins and neighbors, who would be granted freeholds under the English system, instead of the looser arrangements under the former Brehon law system. This was not a new policy but was a well-understood and longstanding practice in the Tudor conquest of Ireland.
On 10 September 1602, the Prince of Tyrconnell had already died, allegedly assassinated, in Spain, and his brother succeeded him as 25th Chieftain of the O'Donnell clan. He was later granted the Earldom of Tyrconnell by King James I on 4 September 1603 and restored to a somewhat diminished scale of territories in Tyrconnell on 10 February 1604.
In 1605, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Sir Arthur Chichester, began to encroach on the former freedoms of the two Earls and The Maguire, enforcing the new freeholds, especially that granted in North Ulster to the O'Cahan chief. The O'Cahan had formerly been important subjects of the O'Neills and required protection; in turn, Chichester wanted to reduce O'Neill's authority. O'Cahan had also wanted to remove himself from O'Neill's overlordship. An option was to charge O'Neill with treason if he did not comply with the new arrangements. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in the same year made it harder for Catholics to appear loyal to both the crown and the papacy. A lengthy legal battle however found in O'Neill's favor.
By 1607, O'Neill's allies the Maguires and the Earl of Tyrconnell were finding it hard to maintain their prestige on lower incomes. They planned to seek Spanish support before news of the Battle of Gibraltar arrived. When their ship dropped anchor, O'Neill seems to have joined them on impulse. He had three options:
* Flee with his friends and hope for a reinvasion by Spain
* Go to London and stay at court until his grievances were redressed
* Do nothing and live on a reduced income as a large landowner in Ulster.
Fearing arrest, they chose to flee to Continental Europe, where they hoped to recruit an army for the invasion of Ireland with Spanish help. However, earlier in 1607 the main Spanish fleet in Europe had been defeated by the Dutch in the Battle of Gibraltar. But the oft-repeated theory that they were all about to be arrested contradicts writer Tadhg Ó Cianáin, the main historical source on the Flight, who said at the start of his account that O'Neill heard news of the ship anchored at Rathmullen on Thursday 6 September, and "took his leave of the Lord Justice (Chichester) the following Saturday". They had been meeting at Slane for several days, and there is no proof that warrants for his arrest had been drawn up, nor was it a hurried departure.
As the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) had been ended by the Treaty of London in 1604, King Philip III of Spain wanted to remain at peace with England under its new Stuart dynasty. As a part of the peace proposals, a Spanish princess was to marry James' son, Henry, though this never happened. Spain had also gone bankrupt in 1598. Tyrone ignored all these realities, remained in Italy, and persisted with his invasion plan until his death in exile in 1616.

## End of the old Gaelic order

The earls left from the town of Rathmullan with some of the leading Gaelic families in Ulster; they traveled down Lough Swilly on a French ship. Their departure was the end of the old Gaelic order, in that the earls were descended from Gaelic clan dynasties that had ruled their parts of Ulster for centuries. The Flight of the Earls was a watershed event in Irish history, as the ancient Gaelic aristocracy of Ulster went into permanent exile. Despite their attachment to and importance in the Gaelic system, the Earls' ancestors had accepted their Earldoms from the English-run Kingdom of Ireland in the 1540s, under the policy of surrender and regrant (under this policy, Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Irish rulers were to surrender themselves and their lands to Henry VIII, and he would grant their land back to them along with an English title). Some historians argue that their flight was forced upon them by the fallout from the Tudor conquest of Ireland, while others that it was an enormous strategic mistake that cleared the way for the Plantation of Ulster.
From 1616, a number of bards outside Ulster had a poetic debate in the "Contention of the bards" and one of the arguments celebrated King James's Gaelic-Irish Milesian ancestry through Malcolm III of Scotland. So it is debatable whether the Gaelic order had ended or was evolving.

## Journey

The Earls set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, accompanied by ninety followers, many of them Ulster noblemen, and some members of their families. Several left their wives behind, hoping either to return or retrieve them later. The late Tomás Ó Fiaich, Archbishop of Armagh, gave a lecture at Rathmullan in September 1988 and recounted that the Earl of Tyrone allegedly "had a gold cross which contained a relic of the True Cross, and this he trailed in the water behind the ship, and according to O'Ciainain, it gave some relief from the storm" during the crossing to Quillebeuf-sur-Seine in Normandy, France. They finally reached the Continent on 4 October 1607. This supposed relic of the True Cross was probably a minor relic taken from that kept at Holy Cross Abbey, which they had previously visited en route to Kinsale in 1601.
Their destination was Spain, but they disembarked in France. The party proceeded overland to Spanish Flanders, some remaining in Leuven, while the main party continued to Italy. Tadhg Ó Cianáin (sometimes quoted by historians as O'Keenan) subsequently described the journey in great detail. While the party was welcomed by many important officials in the Spanish Netherlands, he makes no mention of any negotiations or planning between the earls and the Spanish to start a new war to regain the earls' properties.
Ó Cianáin's diary is important as the only continuous and contemporaneous account of the Flight. Its original title, Turas na dTaoiseach nUltach as Éirinn – the departure of the Chiefs of Ulster from Ireland – has been changed since the creation of the more dramatic phrase "Flight of the Earls" to the latter's modern literal translation, Imeacht na nIarlaí; and, according to Professor Ó Muraíle, turas can also mean a religious pilgrimage.

## Attainders

King James issued "A Proclamation touching the Earles of Tyrone and Tyrconnell" on 15 November 1607, describing their action as treasonous, and therefore preparing the ground for the eventual forfeiture of their lands and titles. No reply that is known of was made to the proclamation.
Their titles were attainted in 1614, although they continued to be recognized on the Continent. The attainders were not considered legitimate in continental Catholic countries of the day. Even within the context of English and colonial Irish rule, the attainder came about six years after Rory, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, had already died. As accused, for him to have been properly tried, he should have been tried by his peers in the Peerage of Ireland, under the presiding authority of the Lord High Steward of Ireland. However, he was already dead, unable to stand in his own defense, and his title already inherited by his son Hugh "Albert" O'Donnell; therefore in order to attain the title, the trial would have to have been of Hugh "Albert", who had in fact committed no crime. The 6-year delay in hearing the attainders was unavoidable, as his peers in the Irish House of Lords next sat in 1613, and dealt with the matter in the usual manner.
The attainder was however considered a travesty of justice by his supporters, and was considered null and void by many on the Continent. The succession of the Earl of Tyrconnell's son, Hugh Albert O'Donnell, as 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell (1st creation) was therefore recognized as valid in the Spanish Empire, and he was given the same status under a new Spanish title Conde de Tirconnel.
Under the Common law, the title granted by King James and accepted by the earl had potentially lapsed as soon as the Earl embarked on the ship without his king's permission to leave Ireland, and when it lapsed it could not then pass down to his descendants without some special waiver. Assuming that Hugh Albert was being punished for a crime he did not commit, and was not being given a hearing, misses the whole point of the law of attainder. Hugh Albert was never issued a Writ of Summons to sit in the Irish House of Lords as his father's heir. Hugh Albert also never came to Dublin in 1614 to argue his case for a waiver, so far as is known, and never accepted James I as his king. Until he did so, his title and his claim to nobility were considered to be "in abeyance".
These attainders had a much greater impact on the people of Ulster. The 1603 peace arrangement with the three lords was ended, as they had broken its conditions by leaving the kingdom without permission, and their remaining freehold lands were confiscated. Chichester proposed a new plantation of settlers from England, Wales and Scotland, sponsored in part by the City of London merchants, which became known as the Plantation of Ulster. This had an enormous negative impact on the lower class Gaelic-culture inhabitants of Ulster.

## Change in Spanish policy

In the papal bull Ilius of 1555, the Pope had conferred the title King of Ireland on King Philip II of Spain when he was married to Queen Mary. Philip II made no claim to the kingship of Ireland after Mary's death in 1558. He engaged in a lengthy war from 1585 with her sister Elizabeth I, and he and his successor Philip III supported the Irish Catholic rebels by sending the 4th Spanish Armada to Ireland in 1601 which ended in defeat at Kinsale. He had been offered the kingship in 1595 by O'Neill and his allies but turned it down. Given this lengthy support, it was reasonable for O'Donnell and O'Neill to imagine that they might solicit help from Philip III, but Spanish policy was to maintain the 1604 Treaty with England, and its European fleet had been weakened from several conflicts, including the Battle of Gibraltar by the Dutch over four months earlier.
Therefore, by mid-1607 Spain had neither the desire nor the means to assist an Irish rebellion. While the Flight is often described as a first step in arranging a new war, this must be seen as an emotional and false conclusion, as there were no plans or proposals at all from the Spanish side to support the earls. Spanish policy in the 1590s had been to help the Irish warlords as a nuisance against England, but they had been defeated by 1603. It could not be in any way in the interest of Spain to assist their unsuccessful former allies in 1607.

## Commemoration on the 400th anniversary

The 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls was marked on 14 September 2007, throughout Donegal, including a regatta of tall ships, fireworks, lectures, and conferences. The President of Ireland Mary McAleese unveiled a statue by John Behan depicting the Flight at Rathmullan. There is a permanent exhibition dedicated to the Flight of the Earls and the subsequent plantation in Draperstown in Northern Ireland and at the "Flight of the Earls Centre" in the Martello tower at Rathmullan. There were also commemorative postage stamps issued by the Irish post office, featuring Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and based on original illustrations by Sean O Brogain, made as they were about to sail out of Rathmullan.
In 2008 there were also celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Earls in Rome, with a celebratory performance by the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland in Sant'Ignazio Church in Rome. The flight was famously depicted by Thomas Ryan in his 1958 painting The Departure of O'Neill out of Ireland.

## List of refugees

Tadhg Ó Cianáin kept a record of the refugees who participated in the flight. In 1972, Tomás Ó Fiaich and Pádraig de Barra published Imeacht na nIarlaí, which expanded the list of refugees based on extensive research.
| Name | Name | Role/Rank | Notes | References |
| Anglicised | Irish | Role/Rank | Notes | References |
| Ship's Crew |||||
| John Connor | | Captain | | |
| John Rath | | Pilot | | |
| O'Neill Clan |||||
| Family |||||
| Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone | Aodh Mór Ó Néill | O'Neill clan chief, family patriarch | Died July 1616 in Rome, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. | |
| Catherine O'Neill, Countess of Tyrone | | Tyrone's fourth wife | Died March 1619 in Naples. | |
| Hugh O'Neill, 4th Baron Dungannon | Aodh Ó Néill | Tanist to the O'Neill chieftaincy, Tyrone's eldest surviving son by his wife Siobhán | Died in September 1609 of fever in Rome, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. | |
| Shane O'Neill | Seán Ó Néill | Tyrone and Catherine's eldest son | Became "El Conde de Tyrone" in the Spanish nobility. Died during the Battle of Montjuïc in January 1641. | |
| Brian O'Neill | Brian Ó Néill | Tyrone and Catherine's youngest son | Assassinated in August 1617, aged 13. | |
| Art Oge O'Neill | Art Óg Ó Néill | | | |
| | | Art Oge O'Neill's wife | | |
| Brian O'Neill | | Tyrone's nephew | | |
| Feardorcha O'Neill | | Tyrone's grandson | Son of Tyrone's eldest son Conn O'Neill, who died in 1601 | |
| Hugh Oge O'Neill | Aodh Óg Ó Néill | Tyrone's grand-nephew | | |
| | Maigbheathadh Ó Néill | | | |
| Hugh MacHenry O'Neill | Aodh Mac Éinrí Ó Néill | | | |
| Staff |||||
| Henry Hovenden | | Tyrone's secretary and chief advisor | Tyrone's Anglo-Irish foster-brother. He died in September 1610 in Rome. | |
| Henry O'Hagan | Enri Ó hAgáin | Tyrone's secretary | Survived Tyrone and settled disputes of the Earl's will. | |
| Pedro Blanco | | Footman | Originally a Spanish seaman who came to Ireland in the Spanish Armada. Blanco was still living in Rome in 1616. | |
| Muirchearttach Ó Cionne | | Marshall | | |
| Christopher Plunkett | | Master of horse | | |
| | Colmán | Tyrone's priest | | |
| | | Tyrone's page | | |
| | | 2 lackies of Tyrone | | |
| Sean O'Hagan | Seán na bpunta Ó hÁgáin | Rent collector | | |
| | | Wife of Sean O'Hagan | | |
| O'Donnell Clan |||||
| Family |||||
| Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell | Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill | O'Donnell clan chief, family patriarch | Made 1st Earl of Tyrconnell in 1603. Died in Rome from fever in July 1608, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. | |
| Hugh O'Donnell, Baron of Donegal | Aodh Ailbhe mac Rudhraighe Ó Domhnaill | Tanist to the O'Donnell chieftaincy, Tyrconnell's only son by his wife Bridget. | Succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell. He became a General in the Spanish army. He died off Barcelona in July 1642 when his ship perished whilst fighting against a French vessel. | |
| Cathbarr O'Donnell | Cathbarr Ó Domhnaill | Tyrconnell's only surviving younger brother | His other brothers, Hugh Roe and Manus, died in the Nine Years' War. Cathbarr died in Rome from fever September 1608, buried in San Pietro in Montorio. | |
| Rosa O'Doherty | Róisín Ní Dhochartaigh | Cathbarr's wife | Sister of Cahir O'Doherty. She later remarried to Owen Roe O'Neill and returned to Ireland in the 1640s. Rosa died in Brussels in November 1660 and was buried at St. Anthony's College. | |
| Hugh O'Donnell | Aodh Ó Domhnaill | Cathbarr and Rosa's son | Died in 1625 as a captain in the Siege of Breda. | |
| Nuala O'Donnell | Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill | Tyrconnell's sister | Died circa 1630, and buried at St. Anthony's College | |
| Grania O'Donnell | | Nuala's daughter | Possibly the daughter of Niall Garve O'Donnell | |
| Margaret O'Donnell | Maighread Ní Dhomhnaill | Tyrconnell's sister | Francis Martin O'Donnell states that Margaret took part in the Flight. Eunan O'Donnell states that Margaret did not take part, and that she left for Flanders in 1622. | |
| Donal Oge O'Donnell | Domhnall Óg Ó Domhnaill | Tyrconnell's half-nephew | Son of Rory's late half-brother Donal | |
| Nechtain O'Donnell | | Tyrconnell's second cousin | | |
| Staff |||||
| | Seán Crón MacDaibhid | Steward | | |
| Mathew Tullie | | Secretary | Formerly secretary to Tyrconnell's predecessor Hugh Roe O'Donnell | |
| Caecilia O'Gallagher | | Hugh Albert O'Donnell's wet nurse | | |
| | Muiris | Tyrconnell's page | | |
| | | 4 servants of Tyrconnell | | |
| | | 3 lackies of Tyrconnell | | |
| | | 3 waiting women | | |
| Other |||||
| Nobles |||||
| Cúchonnacht Maguire | | Maguire clan chief, Lord of Fermanagh | Organised the ship | |
| Sémus Mac Éimhir MacConnell | | Maguire's son | | |
| | | Maguire's son | Name of the second son is unknown | |
| Donagh O'Brian | Donnchadh Ó Briain | | A cousin of the earls of Thomond and Clanrickard who helped Maguire get to Rathmullan | |
| Clergymen |||||
| Fr. Maurice Ultach | Muiris Ulltach Ó Duinnshléibhe | Franciscan friar | This individual could be Muiris MacDonough Ultach or Muiris MacSean Ultach. | |
| Fr. Florence Conroy | Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire | | | |
| Fr. Roibeard Mac Artúir (or Chamberlain) | | | | |
| Fr. Tomás Strong | | | | |
| Fr. Patrick Duff | Pádraig Ó Duibh | | The Earl of Tyrone's private chaplain | |
| Fr. Patrick O'Lorcan | Pádraig Ó Lorcáin | | The Countess of Tyrone's chaplain | |
| Fr. Pádraig Ó Luchráin | | | | |
| Fr. Niallán Mac Thiarnáin | | | | |
| Fr. Toirealach Ó Sléibhín | | | | |
| Fr. Brian Ó Gormlaigh | | | | |
| Fr Diarmaid Ó Duláin | | | | |
| Students |||||
| Pádraig Mac Éinrí Ó hÁgáin | | | | |
| Pádraig Mac Cormaic Ó hÁigáin | | | | |
| Éamann Ó Maolchraoibhe | | | | |
| Fearghas mac Cathmhaoil | | | | |
| Matha Mac Thréanfhir | | | | |
| Walter Rath | | | | |
| Merchants |||||
| Richard Weston | | A Dundalk merchant | Master of Tyrone's bribes | |
| John Bath | | A Drogheda merchant | | |

### Other

* Eamonn gruamdha MacDaibhid
** MacDaibhid's wife
* Aodh Mac Domhnaill Ó Gallchobhair
* Tirlagh Carragh Ó Gallchobhair
* Edmund Breatnach
* Henry O'Kelly
* George Cashell
* Tadhg Ó Cianáin, writer
* James Bath
* Donnachadh Mac Suibhne
* Gearóid Ó Conchubhair
* Cyer Mac Tamalin
* David Craffort
* George Ichingham
* Donncha Ó hÁgáin
* Pádraig Ó Coinne
* George Moore
* Peter Preston
* Patrick Rath
* Pádraig Mag Uidhir
* Edmund de Burgo
* Cathaoir Mac Airt Ó Gallchóir
* Tuathal Ó Gallchóir
* Aodh Óg Ó Gallchóir
* Eoghan Ruadh Mac an Bhaird
* Seán Mac Philib
* Aonghus Mac Dhuifíthe
* Uilliam Ó Loingsigh
* Cathal Ó Broin
* Bernard Morris
* Niallan Mac Davitt
* Conchbhar Óg Ó Dubheannaigh
* Donnchadh Coughlan
* Dermot Dolan
* Brian O'Hegarty
* Doighre Ó Duígeannáin