Rathlin Island massacre

Rathlin Island was used as a sanctuary because of its natural defences and rocky shores; when the wind blew from the west, in earlier times it was almost impossible to land.

Their military leader, Sorley Boy MacDonnell (Scottish Gaelic: Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill) and other Scots had thought it prudent to send their wives, children, elderly, and sick to Rathlin Island for safety.

[2] Acting on the instructions of Henry Sidney and the Earl of Essex, Francis Drake and John Norreys took the castle by storm.

Drake used two cannons to batter the castle and when the walls gave in, Norreys ordered a direct attack on 25 July, and the Garrison surrendered.

[3] Essex, who ordered the killings, boasted in a letter to Francis Walsingham, the Queen's secretary and spymaster, that Sorley Boy MacDonnell watched the massacre from the mainland helplessly and was "like to run mad from sorrow".