The vast Desmond lands spanned the northwest and east of Munster, across the modern counties of Kerry, Cork, and Waterford from the tip of the Dingle peninsula to Lismore Castle and the mouth of the River Suir.

Gerald FitzJames FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, claimed jurisdiction over "The Déise" in County Waterford, and in January 1565, crossed the Blackwater with his army, to levy tribute in the old form of "coign and livery".

Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, 1st Viscount Decies, chief of the district and a Desmond dependent, resident in the borderland between the territories, called on his first cousin, Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond for help.

[1] Ormonde mobilised his men to intercept the Geraldines at Affane, a ford over the Finisk, a tributary of the Blackwater River, in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains near Lismore.

Desmond's forces comprised his Fitzgerald kinsmen, allied Gaelic clans such as the O'Connors and O'Briens, and a disaffected dependent of Ormonde's, Sir Piers Butler of Cahir.

In the company of the MacCarthys, O'Sullivans, MacSheehys, and O'Connors, he marched to Bewley at the tidal high point of the Finisk, where he demanded service of Maurice Fitzgerald in the formal way, according to the customary military exactions of coyne and livery.

At this point Ormonde had progressed to the ford of Affane, a short distance below Lismore Castle, where his forces, bearing a red flag, were passed by Desmond's foot soldiers at the crossroads.

Ormonde's brother, Sir Edmund Butler of Cloughgrenan, hit Desmond in the right hip with a pistol-shot, cracking his thigh-bone and throwing him from his horse.

As a result, both Desmond (who had been brought before the privy council on a litter) and his brothers, Seán and James, were arrested and detained in the Tower of London; it was seven years before the earl returned to Munster with his wife, Eleanor.