page_title: Siege of Kinsale
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Siege of Kinsale / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: Español: Puerto de Kinsale Taken by Valdoria. august 2006
context_page_description: The Siege or Battle of Kinsale was the ultimate battle in England's conquest of Gaelic Ireland, commencing in October 1601, near the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and at the climax of the Nine Years' War—a campaign by Hugh O'Neill, Hugh Roe O'Donnell and other Irish lords against English rule.
  Owing to Spanish involvement, and the strategic advantages to be gained, the battle also formed part of the Anglo-Spanish War, the wider conflict of Protestant England against Catholic Spain.
context_section_description: This loss put an end to Spanish help in Ireland and to much of the Irish resistance. The Ulster forces returned to their home province, and after two more years of attrition the last of them surrendered in 1603, just after the death of Queen Elizabeth. In the following year England and Spain agreed to make peace with the signing of the Treaty of London.
  O’Donnell went to Castlehaven and took a ship to Spain. He was well received there but died a few months later, said to be by poisoning by George Carew’s spy, Blake.
  O’Neill returned to his native Ulster and continued to fight, but his aura of invincibility was broken. He submitted to the crown at Mellifont on 30 March 1603, where he received generous terms. Four years later he decided to go to Spain. O'Neill was accompanied by many supporters and other chieftains. This is known as the "Flight of the Earls".  Their intention was always to raise an army and oust English authority in their home province, but the territories they had left behind were soon divided up in the Plantation of Ulster, and they were never able to return.
  The English administration saw the ideal opportunity to seize most of the land of Ulster, and to bring in Presbyterian Lowland Scots and northern English settlers to farm it. The English had achieved their objectives of destroying the old Gaelic order, ridding themselves of the clan system and the more troublesome chieftains.
  The result of the Battle of Kinsale was devastating to the existing Irish culture and way of life, as the old Gaelic system was finally broken.  As the Gaelic aristocracy fled to continental Europe, they left behind a power vacuum that the authority of the English filled.
caption: Kinsale's port today
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