Flight of the Earls

[1] 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.

[5] 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.

[6] 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.

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.

[9] 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.

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.

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".

[10] 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.

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.

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.

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.

[15] 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.

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.

[citation needed] 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 up to the siege of Kinsale in 1601.

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.

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.

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.

[21] In 1972, Tomás Ó Fiaich and Pádraig de Barra published Imeacht na nIarlaí, which expanded the list of refugees based on extensive research.