Nine Years War

Nine Years War (Apr. 1593–Mar. 1603), also known as Tyrone's rebellion, after the state's main antagonist in the conflict, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd earl of Tyrone. It arose from Fitzwilliam's partition of Monaghan, which broke up the MacMahon lordship and threatened other Ulster lordships with a similar fate. The state's other main antagonist, Red Hugh O'Donnell, was O'Neill's son‐in‐law. Their alliance transcended traditional rivalry in Ulster and came to include many other Gaelic lords in an oath‐bound confederacy which initially took the form of a secret conspiracy.

The first action of the war was an exercise in manipulation and deceit by O'Neill. After the ejection of a sheriff from Fermanagh, O'Neill fought on the side of the government while simultaneously directing his brother Cormac, and other relatives whom he allegedly could not control, against the state. This was a delaying tactic, because the northern lords were hoping for aid from Spain, where they had sent agents as early as 1592. O'Neill disclosed his true role in February 1595 when he ordered the destruction of the garrison on the river Blackwater. The state finally proclaimed him a traitor in June 1595.

Irish tactics during the war were primarily defensive. The buannacht system used to accommodate redshanks was reoriented to put local troops into the field. These were well trained and leavened with English and Spanish veterans. Up to a third of the confederates fought with firearms, supplied by Scottish and Old English merchants, which enhanced their traditional guerrilla‐style tactics. A major lack was artillery, which made the taking of forts and towns, other than by ruse or betrayal, impossible. The English army, surprised by the discipline of their opponents, suffered from a divided command, between Lord Deputy Russell and Lord General Norris in 1596–7, and between Black Tom Butler of Ormond and Henry Bagenal in 1598. Their offensive tactics usually amounted to no more than a single expedition to establish or relieve outlying garrisons. The resulting Irish victories were in fact large ambushes—the Ford of the biscuits (1594), Clontibret (1595), the Yellow Ford (1598). These successes, together with the fall of Sligo and Cavan, allowed the war to spread to Connacht and Leinster in 1595 and to Munster in 1598.

For the Irish, politics was an extension of war. O'Neill used ceasefires and long‐drawn‐out negotiations as a delaying tactic in which the hard‐pressed and factionalized state acquiesced. A compromise, which would have left O'Neill supreme in Ulster, was negotiated in 1596 but aborted by the timely arrival of Spanish agents. Further negotiations, prolonged in the case of Ormond in 1598, and short and secret in the case of Essex in 1599, worked to O'Neill's advantage. After the débâcle of Essex's lieutenancy, O'Neill and his confederates controlled the greater part of Ireland. Unable to take the towns by force, O'Neill now tried to win over the Old English Catholics. In November 1599 he issued a proclamation requesting the Old English to join his fight for faith and fatherland. A final negotiating position with the crown, which would have provided for an autonomous Catholic Ireland run jointly by its great lords and the Old English, was drawn up. Cecil, the English secretary of state, marked these 22 demands with the word ‘Utopia’.

O'Neill's adoption of patria frightened the crown more than it encouraged the Old English. Mountjoy was rapidly dispatched to Dublin and Docwra established at Lough Foyle behind confederate lines. The strategy was now the establishment of small garrisons, closely placed and mutually supporting, to wear down the economy that supported the irregular warfare of the Irish. The long‐heralded Spanish expedition finally landed at Kinsale, only to withdraw ignominiously after O'Neill and O'Donnell abandoned their defensive tactics and risked all in a pitched battle. The garrisons in Ulster brought famine in their wake. One by one O'Neill's allies sued for peace and he went into hiding. In September 1602 Mountjoy destroyed the symbol of his authority at Tullaghoge. However, the garrison policy was proving very expensive and could be sustained only by the debasement of the Irish currency. The state was therefore glad when O'Neill submitted at Mellifont in March 1603. The war had cost the English exchequer nearly £2 million—eight times as much as any previous Irish war and as much as Elizabeth's continental wars. But it had given England complete control of Ireland for the first time since the Anglo‐Norman invasion.

Bibliography

Morgan, Hiram , Tyrone's Rebellion (1993)

Hiram Morgan