THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 23 October 1919, Page 9

THE STORY OF IRELAND

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

.■_;v,i:-- v CHAPTER XXXVl.—(Continued.) , J Faithful to the dying message of Fitzmaurice, John of Desmond now avowed his resolution to continue the struggle; which he did bravely, and not without brilliant results. -<. But ■■■the", .earl still "stood on the fence." Still would he fain persuade the Government that he was quite averse to the mad designs of his unfortunate kinsmen; and still the Government, fully believing him a sympathiser with the movement, lost no opportunity , of scornfully taunting him! with insinuations. Eventually they commenced to treat his lands as the possessions of an enemy, wasting and harrying them; and at length the Earl, finding too late that in such a struggle there was for him no neutrality, took the held. But this step on his part, which if it had been taken earlier, might have had a powerful effect, was now, as I have said, all too late for any substantial influence upon tho lost cause. Yet he showed by a few brilliant victories at the very outset that he was, in a military sense, not all unworthy of his position as First Geraldine. The Spanish King, too, had by this time been moved to the aid of the struggle. The Fort del Ore once more received an expedition from Spain, where this time there lauded a force of 700 Spaniards and Italians, under the command of Sebastian San Josef, Hercules Pisano, and tho Duke of Biscay. They brought, moreover, arms for 5000 men, a large supply of money, and cheering promises of still further, aid from over the sea. Lord Grey, the Deputy, quickly saw that probably tho future existence of British power in Ireland depended upon the swift and sudden crushing of this formidable expedition ; accordingly with all vehemence did he strain every energy to concentrate with rapidity around Fort del Ore, by land and sea, an overwhelming force before any aid or co-opera-tion could reach it from tho Geraldines. "Among the officers of the besieging force were three especially notable men Sir Walter Raleigh, the poet Spenser, and Hugh O'Neill —afterwards Earl of Tyrone, but at this time commanding a squadron of cavalry for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. San Josef surrendered the place on conditions; that savage outrage ensued, which is known in Irish history as 'the massacre of Smerwick.' Raleigh and Wingfield appear to have directed the operations by which 800 prisoners of war were cruelly butchered and flung over the rocks. The sea upon that coast is deep, and the tide swift; but it has not proved deep enough to hide that horrid crime, or to wash the stains of such wanton bloodshed from the memory of its authors!"' It may be said that the Geraldine cause never rallied after this disaster. '"For four years longer," says McGee, the historian whom I have just quoted,, "the Geraldine League flickered in the south. Proclamations offering pardon'to all concerned, except Earl Gerald and a few of his most devoted adherents, had their effect. Deserted at home, and cut off from foreign assistance, the condition of Desmond grew more and more intolerable. On one occasion he narrowly escaped capture by rushing with his Countess into a river, and remaining concealed up to the chin in water. His dangers can hardly be paralleled by those of Bruce after the battle of Falkirk, or by the more familiar adventures' of Charles Edward. At length, on the night of November 11, 1584, he was surprised with only two followers in a lonesome valley, about five miles distant from Tralee, among the mountains of Kerry. The spot is still remembered, and the name of 'the Earl's Road' transports the fancy of tho traveller to that tragical scene. Cowering over the embers of a half-extinct fire in a miserable hovel, the lord of a country which in time of peace had yielded an annual rental of '40,000 golden pieces,' was dispatched by the hands of common soldiers, without pity, or time, or " hesitation. A few followers watching their creaghts or herds, farther up the valley, found his bleeding trunk flung out upon the highway; the head was transported overseas to rot upon the spikes of London Tower." Such was the end of the great Geraldine League of 1579. .Even the youngest of my readers must have noticed in its plan and constitution one singular omission which proved a fatal defect. It did not raise the issue of national independence at all. It made no appeal to the national aspirations for liberty. It was simply a war to compel Elizabeth to desist from her bloody persecution of the Catholic faith. Furthermore, it left out of calculation altogether the purely Irish elements. It left all the northernhalf of the kingdom out of sight. It was only a southern movement. The. Irish princes and chiefs—those of them most opposed to the English power — viewed the enterprise with confidence or sympathy. Fitzmaurice devoted much more attention to foreign aid than to native combination. In V truth, .'■ his movement was >■ simply, an

Anglo-Irish war ; to obtain freedom : of conscience, and never raised issues calculated to call forth the united efforts of tho Irish nation in a war against England. .v.,;., (To be continued.)