THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 3 June 1920, Page 7

THE STORY OF IRELAND

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

'CHAPTER LlL—(Continued.) ’ There remains now but to trace the fortunes of O’Sullivan, the last of O’Neill’s illustrious companions in arms. The special vengeance of England marked Donal for a fatal distinction among his fellow chiefs of the ruined confederacy. He was not included in the amnesty settled by the treaty of Mellifont. Wo may be sure it was a sore thought for O’Neill that he could not obtain for a friend so true and tried as O’Sullivan, participation in the terms granted to himself and other of the Northern chieftains. But the Government was inexorable. The Northerns had yet some power left; from the Southern chiefs there now was nought to fear. So, we are told, "there was no pardon for O’Sullivan.” Donal accompanied O’Neill to London the year succeeding James’s accession; but he could obtain no relaxation of the policy decreed against him. He returned to Ireland only to bid it an eternal farewell! Assembling all that now remained to him of family and kindred, he sailed for Spain A.D. 1604. He was received with all honor by King Philip, who forthwith created him a grandee of Spain, Knight of the Military Order of St. lago, and subsequently Earl of Bearhaven. The king, moreover, assigned to him a pension of "three hundred pieces of gold monthly.” The end of this illus.trious exile was truly tragic. His young son, Donal, had a quarrel with an ungrateful Anglo-Irishman named Bath, to whom the old chief had been a kind benefactor. Young Donal’s cousin, _ Philip— author of the Historic Catholicce Ibernice interfered with mediative intentions, when Bath drew his sword, uttering some grossly insulting observations against the O’Sullivans. Philip and he at once attacked each other, but the former soon overpowered Bath, and would have slain him but for the interposition of friends; for all this had occurred at a royal monastery in the suburbs of Madrid, within the precincts of which it was a capital offence to engage, in such a combat. The parties were separated. Bath was drawn off, wounded in the face, when he espied not far off the old chieftain, O’Sullivan Beare, returning from Mass, at which that morning, as was his wont, he had received Holy Communion. He was pacing slowly along, unaware of what had happened. - His head was bent upon, his breast, he held in his; hands his gloves and his rosary beads, and appeared to be engaged in mental prayer. Bath, filled with fury, rushed suddenly behind the aged lord of Beara and. ran him.through the body. O’Sullivan fell to earth; they raised him up— was dead. Thus mournfully perished, in the 57th year of his age, Donal, the "Last Lord of Beare” ; as he is most frequently styled, a man whose personal virtues and public worth won for him the esteem and.; affection of all his contemporaries. His nephew, Philip, became an officer in the Spanish navy, and is known to literary fame as the author of the standard work of history which bears his name, as well as of several publications of lesser note. Young Donal, son of the murdered chieftain, entered the army and fell at Belgrade, fighting against the Turks. The father of Philip the historian (Dermod, brother of Donal, Prince of Beare), died at Corunna, at the advanced ago of a hundred years, and was followed to tho grave soon after by ; his long-wedded wife—- “ Two pillars of a ruined —two old trees of the land; Two voyagers on a sea of ' grief; long suff’rers hand in ■ hand.” . ■ ’ ... .• - \ (To be continued.)