Second Desmond Rebellion
The rebellion was in equal part a protest by feudal lords against the intrusion of central government into their domains; an Irish clan reaction to English policies that were destroying traditional Gaelic culture; and a religious conflict, in which the rebellion's leaders considered themselves defending Catholicism against religious persecution by a Protestant queen who had been pronounced a tyrant and a heretic in 1570 by Pope Pius V's bull Regnans in Excelsis.
The most pressing grievance of the Geraldines had been the government's arrest of Gerald the Earl and his brother John of Desmond in 1568 for their part in a private war against the Butlers in 1565, which had culminated in the Battle of Affane in County Waterford.
Fitzmaurice, the leader of the rebellion, was pardoned and the Earl and his brother John of Desmond were released from imprisonment and returned to their lands.
However, a combination of personal, economic, and religious factors, and the actions of James Fitzmaurice FitzGerald himself, led to an explosion of rebellion in July of that year.
On top of these discontents, Fitzmaurice also had a genuine commitment to the Catholic Counter-Reformation and a deep antipathy to Protestantism, which had been introduced into Ireland by the English.
This was an increasingly important proof of loyalty to the Dublin administration after the promulgation of Pope Pius V's papal bull Regnans in Excelsis in 1570, when the Papacy excommunicated Elizabeth and her officials.
However, the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain showed no interest in supporting him, as he was already overstretched fighting the Dutch Revolt in the Netherlands.
With the English adventurer Captain Thomas Stukley, Fitzmaurice planned an expedition which was to make Giacomo Boncompagni, the nephew of Pope Gregory, King of Ireland.
With a small force of Irish, Spanish, and Italian troops, they set sail for Ireland in early June 1579 from Corunna in Galicia, Spain.
Nicholas Sanders paraded the Papal banner with some ceremony at Dingle and Fitzmaurice proclaimed a holy war sanctioned by letters from Pope Gregory.
This was a very serious matter in 16th century thinking, as it released the Catholic subjects of Elizabeth I from their duty of obedience to her, on the grounds that she was a heretic (the Pope had excommunicated her in 1570).
John and his brother, James Fitzedmund Fitzgerald, the Seneschal of Imokilly, marked their entry into the rebellion by assassinating two English officials, Henry Davells and Arthur Carter in a tavern in Tralee.
John of Desmond and Fitzmaurice together commanded a force of over 3000 men, including a small number of European soldiers, and several thousand native Irish troops.
The prospect of further continental reinforcements was hampered though, when Sir William Winter, on 29 July 1579, four days after the landing at Smerwick, seized the ships of the invasion force and cut off their sea-routes.
However, he managed to assemble only 60 men – in contrast to the thousands raised at short notice by his brother John, indicating that most of the FitzGeralds and their allies sympathised with the rebellion.
A small number went to Carrigafoyle Castle on the southern banks of the River Shannon (in northern County Kerry), the seat of the Earl of Desmond.
The Crown troops were not only English but also composed of Irish forces antagonistic to the Geraldines, notably, apart from Ormonde's followers, the over 1000 fighting men of the MacCarthy Reaghs of Carbery, and also the O'Driscolls.
In March 1580, the Crown forces had an important strategic victory, taking the Desmond stronghold at Carrigafoyle Castle at the mouth of the Shannon.
They had now cut off the Geraldine forces from the north of the country and prevented a landing of foreign troops into the main Munster port of Limerick.
The castle at Askeaton was abandoned with its Spanish defenders blowing up the walls, and the garrisons at Newcastle West, Balliloghan, Rathkeale, and Ballyduff surrendered soon afterwards.
O'Byrne was joined by James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass, an Old English marcher lord of the Pale, who was motivated primarily by his devout Catholicism.
In August, John of Desmond and Nicholas Sanders met Baltinglass in Laois to try to co-ordinate their forces, but aside from limited co-operation in the Barrow valley region, they were unable to forge a common strategy.
On 10 September 1580, a squadron of Spanish ships under the command of Don Juan Martinez de Recalde landed a Papal force of Spanish and Italians numbering 600 men commanded by Sebastiano di San Giuseppe (aka Sebastiano da Modena; Sebastian de San José), at Smerwick, on the Dingle Peninsula near the same point where Fitzmaurice had landed the previous year.
Local historian Margaret Anna Cusack (1868) explained that: "In a few days the courage of the Spanish commander failed, and he entered into treaty with the Lord Deputy.
For the remainder of the war, the Earl and the remaining Geraldines evaded capture on the run in the mountains of Kerry and Tipperary and engaged in guerrilla warfare.
On 11 November 1583 the end came when the Earl was killed in Glenaginty in the Slieve Mish Mountains (near Tralee in County Kerry) by the local Moriarty clan of Castledrum on the Dingle peninsula.
Owen Moriarty received 1000 pounds of silver from the English government for Desmond's head, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth in London, while his body was triumphantly displayed on the walls of Cork city.
[citation needed] Munster continued to suffer from Bubonic plague and famine in the years following the rebellion, and was described as having vast empty areas and a substantially reduced population.
Following a survey in 1584 by the Surveyor General of Ireland, Sir Valentine Browne it was subsequently colonised with English settlers – the Munster Plantations.
The killing of many of the Irish mercenary class in the war was likewise an important development for the English authorities in establishing their monopoly on the use of force in Ireland.
