The parliamentary Roundheads slaughtered without hesitation all the Irish women found in the Royalist camp . . . and disfigured their English sisters by cutting open their faces. They took the Scotsmen prisoners, dug out their eyes, cut off their ears at the roots with razors and nailed down their drawn-out tongues.

        Antrim had difficulty in supplying his forces in Scotland. The Irish Confederate Government, which had largely financed the original expedition, refused to help him further. Charles I, after Marston Moor, was unable to help him. The Marquis, in desperation, therefore approached the Catholic powers of France and Spain for arms, munitions and shipping. This transformed the “War of the Three Kingdoms” into a “War of the Five Kingdoms.”

        Cleverly, The Marquis offered the Spanish Governor-General in Brussels 2,000 of his Irish and Scottish dependents for service in Flanders. Desperate for reinforcements, Spain accepted. In return, Spain supplied Antrim with arms and ammunition he badly needed, together with two fully armed Dunkirk frigates, each worth about £1,562,000. With these, he delivered arms to Colkitto in the Spring of 1646.

        Owen Roe ÓNeill did rout Leslie’s army at Benburb on June 6, 1646. Heavily outnumbered and without artillery, ÓNeill used position and strategy to defeat the Scots. Some 3,000 of Leven’s troops were left dead on the field and Lord Conway’s mounted regiment was reduced to 40 dragoons. Afterward, ÓNeill and Rinuccini forced the Confederacy to rescind a peace it had concluded with the English. Eventually, however, the Catholic faction had no choice but to ally with the English Anglican royalists against the radical Puritan parliamentarians.

        For almost two years following Philiphaugh, Colkitto conducted a guerilla war against the Campbells in the West Highlands. The Marquis of Antrim joined him there for several months in 1646, first hatching plots to relieve Charles in England and then, after his surrender, plots for his escape. But, without a renewal of the general war, their cause was doomed, although the dynastic conflict in the Highlands continued unabated. Colkitto’s brother, Gilleasbuig MacCholla, was apparently killed during a siege of Skipness Castle in August, 1646. 200 Lamonts, including thirty-six special gentlemen of the clan, were massacred in 1646 at Dunoon by Argyll. Huntley and 1,800 of his Gordons remained loyal to the king and actually re-opened the campaign in December, 1646, laying siege to Banff in conjunction with an attempt by Charles to escape on Christmas Eve, holding the town until March, 1647. Nearly half a century of this bloodshed was to pass until the great issues were finally decided. The tradition of the MacCallums or Malcolms, a sept of the Campbells of Lochow, says that Zachary MacCallum of Poltalloch, a supporter of the Marquis of Argyll and renowned for his strength, was killed by Sir Alasdair MacDonnell at Ederline in 1647. He is said to have already slain seven MacDonnells and was attacking Colkitto. Pressing Sir Alasdair hard, the MacCallums claim he was struck from behind by a man armed with a scythe, a dubious contention, considering MacDonnell’s size, skill and well known heroism.

        Leslie and the Covenant army left Dunblane, marching west, on May 17 and, ten days later, had reached Loch Kilkerran (now Campbeltown). As the Covenanters had approached Kintyre, crossing The Douglas Water about 4 miles below Inverary, the folklore of Colonsay, significant to Clan Donald’s heritage, asserts that Colkitto was at “The Mill of Gocam-gó,” some 20 miles northeast of his own lines at Tarbert and at risk of being cut off by Leslie. When Colkitto was a small child, his nurse had cast a spell with a ball of blue yarn and prophesied “Ni thu móran gaisge fhathast agus théid gach blár leat gas gun sáth thu do bhratach aig muileann Ghocam-gó, agus tha théid leat tuille ‘na dhéidh sin!” (You will perform great deeds of valor yet and you will be successful in every battle until you set up your standard at the mill of Gocam-go, but you will never be successful after that!) The MacDonnells found a few bags of meal which they took. As they prepared to burn the mill, the miller offered Alasdair some snuff, which he accepted, sparing the buildings, after setting his standard in the ground “air mullach cnocan cruinn ris an abairte Gocam-gó” (on the top of a round hillock they call the spy). A lucky penny then fell from the staff and, at “Leug Buaidh” (Meadow of the Charm) he lost his lucky charm. Alarmed, Colkitto then heard the name of the place, after which he is said to have lost his resolve.

        It is told that, as Hector MacAlasdair, 6th of Loup, along with two of his sons, was on his way to join his son-in-law, Colkitto, for the defense of Dun Abhartaidh in 1647, he was captured by Argyll and murdered at Whinny Hill near Loch Kilkerran. Argyll’s instructions are said to have been, “First hang the whelps and then the old fox.” Hector’s wife, a Campbell kinswoman of Argyll arrived too late to save her husband and sons. But she fell on her knees and cursed Gilleasbuig Gruamach and the people of the district so vehemently that, to this day, when the story is told, it is said that the heart-broken woman’s curses clung to Argyll until he himself was dragged to the scaffold.

        After Charles had been given to the English, Huntley had been chased from Aberdeenshire by Leslie and was later betrayed by the Camerons in Lochaber and captured. Montrose had retired to St Germain from Norway to join the Stuart court in exile in France. Aeneas MacDonell of Glengarry, with his regiment, retreated down the Kintyre Peninsula to Dun Abhartaidh where he met Colkitto. They held a final council on the sands below the fortress and decided that ‘Neas would defend Dun Naibhig Castle on Islay with 200 men, expecting relief by the Earl of Antrim and Irish reinforcements. Gilleasbuig MacGilleasbuig of Sanda and his son, Gilleasbuig Ogh, with 300 men, including some MhiccDougall from Lorne, “being all the place could contain,” would occupy Dun Abhartaidh, while Alasdair would go to Ireland to help organize reinforcements.

        Hearing that Colkitto had gone to Islay, Leslie began a quest for boats with which to follow him. But lacking sufficient shipping for the purpose, he laid siege to Dun Abhartaidh. Throughout the month of June, Dun Abhartaidh, well provisioned and fortified, withstood Leslie’s determined assaults. They may have held out for a year, if not that on July 10, the Covenanters discovered that the fortress’ water supply came through pipes from a spring outside the walls to a well inside. When the pipeline was destroyed, the defenders were forced to surrender. They marched out of the castle with flags furled and surrendered their weapons, expecting to be treated as prisoners of war.

        Sir James Turner, Leslie’s Adjutant General, admitted after the restoration that the surrendered garrison were confined for five days before they were turned out and executed to a man. The English officers had debated the fate of the prisoners until the prevailing voice of the Reverend John Naves, Chaplain of the Covenanters, and a fanatic Presbyterian minister from New Mills, Ayrshire, swayed Leslie and the rest to his view, “yea, and threatened him with the curses befell Saull for spareing the Amalekites.” Turner reported that after the slaughter, as Argyll, Leslie and Naves walked among the dead with blood to their ankles, the general turned to Naves and said, “Now, Mass John, have you not for once got your full of blood?”

        The 300 MacDonalds, MacAlisters and MacDougalls were refused Christian burial beside the nearby chapel, but instead, after being picked clean by scavengers, the bones were gathered and buried in a communal grave on the seashore under the walls of Dun Abhartaidh, just west of the fortress. Argyll and Leslie burned barracks, outworks and every other thing that would burn, finally destroying the four hundred year old fortress that had once sheltered Robert the Bruce and had given refuge to countless generations of MacDonalds. Young Ranald mac Gilleasbuig Ogh of Sanda, still a babe in arms, alone among the MacDonnell defenders, survived through the bravery and resource of his nurse, Flora MacCambridge. She smuggled him out, along with a ring that is still in the possession of the Sanda family. As she ran along the beach with the naked baby, Flora was accosted by Captain Campbell of Craignish, but she said that the child was her own. “It has the eyes of a MacDonnell,” said Campbell, “but, no matter, it wants clothing.” Whereupon, he cut off a piece of his own plaid and gave it to her for a covering. The nurse and her charge found shelter in a cave and so survived. Ranald mac Gilleasbuig Ogh later married Anne Stewart, sister of the first Earl of Bute. Survivors named by other clan traditions included James Stewart of Blackhall and MacDougall of Kilmun.

        With the campaign in Kintyre lost, Colkitto and Aeneas of Glengarry went to Ireland, after evacuating as many men from Kintyre and Islay as their limited number of galleys would allow. Preference was given to Irish troops, while many Highland warriors were released to make their way home. On July 5, 1647, Stuart rule independent of the English Parliament officially ended for all time in Scotland with the surrender of Dun Naibhig by Ranald and Donald Gorm MacDonnell and Captain Donald ÓNeill. They were given written articles in which Argyll and Leslie promised that “Upon the performance whereof, we, Archd. Marquis of Argyll & Gen. Lieut. Leslie, promise, and oblige our soldiers, to grant unto all and every one within the said fort, their lives; and to promise all the country people, or Scotch men, to pass home and enjoy their own livings peaceably.”

        When Charles I surrendered to the Scots near Newark on May 5, 1646, he ordered Antrim’s Irish brigade in Scotland to disband. From this point on, Ranald’s loyalty to the Stuart cause began to waver due to his ambitions as chief of the MacDonnells. When Antrim received his third instruction from the king on July 29 to lay down his arms, he instead returned to Ireland “. . . for the purpose to renew the kings service there, and to make himselfe capable to renewe the warres of Scotland, when commanded by his Majestie.” Antrim not only refused to surrender but began plans to raise an army of 30,000 men with which he hoped first to reduce Scotland, and then to march into England and to free the king. The Earl of Antrim therefore threatened any chance of securing a peace between the king on the one hand, and the English and Scottish parliaments on the other. MacDonnell was encouraged when Owen Roe ÓNeill defeated Munro at Benburb. The Irish earl tried his luck again in the Fall of 1646 and offered to send 1,200 troops (which were under attack at the time by Leslie and a superior force) from Kintyre to Flanders in return for further financial assistance. Again, the Spanish Governor-General accepted, but Antrim also offered the same mercenaries to the French crown.

        In Ireland, Randal also defied the king’s authority and, from January, 1647, he joined the Irish Confederates. Antrim led the opposition to any permanent peace settlement with his competitor for royal favor, the Earl of Ormonde. Randal had wanted the post of Lord Lieutenant for Ireland himself and attempted to undermine Ormonde’s power base. MacDonnell became one of the most active and vocal supporters of Archbishop Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio. As a result, Antrim ensured that the king received no Irish aid and, at the same time, further divided the Irish Catholic Party which then collapsed during the Winter of 1648-49.

        In July, 1647, Rinuccini gave Alasdair "Colkitto” MacDonnell command of a regiment of Preston’s royalists who had been engaged in an abortive siege of Trim. The following month, after being augmented by MacDonnell reinforcements, they fought a battle with parliamentary forces at Dungan’s Hill. Unfortunately, Preston’s forces were routed and Colkitto had to fight his way off the field along with ‘Neas and 400 of his Glengarrys, leaving another 400 dead or taken prisoner. Colkitto then went to Munster where he was made a major general and governor of Clonmel under command of their Lord President of Munster, Theobald Lord Taffe, a 25 year old from Sligo, who was based at Cashel, but who was, unfortunately, not a military strategist.

        After a few months of relative peace, the end of Colkitto’s campaign for King Charles came in a three hour battle at Knocknanuss (Cnoc na Nús - Hill of First Milk) in northeastern Co. Cork a few miles east of Kanturk, on November 13, 1647. The royalist forces, numbering some 6,300 troops, were commanded by Lord Taffe whose own contingent was about 2,500. Colkitto was named deputy commander and his regiment totaled about 2,000, most of them inexperienced kerns. There were also three units of royalist cavalry of about 500 each, commanded respectively by Lord Castleconnell, Major General Purcell and McDonnagh McCarthy of Kanturk. The parliamentary army totaled some 4,500 men under the command of the Lord President of Munster, Murrough ÓBrien, Lord Inchiquin, directly descended from the ÓBriens of Thomond but remembered by Irish Catholics as the Irish quisling.
 

        As was customary, Colkitto commanded the right wing and their traditional Highland charge triumphed predictably. Inchiquin’s men were routed, their cannon captured and MacDonnell’s men began to plunder the baggage train. But Lord Taffe’s division, on the left and out of sight of Colkitto, had been outmaneuvered and thrown into confusion. Not knowing this, when Alasdair and a small party went to reconnoiter, they were spotted by a strong force of parliamentary cavalry commanded by a cornet of horse named ÓGrady and captured. There are contested stories of a conspiracy by Lord Taffe and others jealous of his reputation and prospects to betray Colkitto and leave him to the enemy, but however he was captured, there seems to be a consensus that the giant MacDonnell hero was executed the same evening and buried in the orchard of Rathmaher House. One version of how it occurred was that, as he was being escorted from the field, they crossed the Blackwater River at a place still known as “The Chieftain’s Ford.” Colkitto stopped in the water to allow his horse to drink and, leaning forward to drink also, he exposed a gap in his armor. From jealousy over ÓGrady’s coup, Major Nicholas Purdon of Ballyclough is said to have taken the opportunity to stab him in the back.

        His huge body was subsequently recovered by Kathleen ÓCallaghan of Clonmeen, daughter of Donough ÓCallaghan, a member of the Confederate Supreme Council and a supporter of Rinuccini. Colkitto is said to have had an affair with the colleen. She took his remains to the ÓCallaghan tomb where it was reentered with all the honor and ceremony to which a Gaelic chief was entitled. Some of the pibrochs played by the Highland pipers as they conveyed their chief to his present resting place still survive and are known locally as MacAllister’s March. His great claymore was taken from the Knocknanuss battlefield to Lohort Castle where it remained until 1898.

         ‘Neas MacDonell and those of his regiment who escaped, joined the Earl of Antrim’s regiment under the over-all command of the earl’s son. Finally, they were defeated in Queens County. Glengarry and Clanranald were taken prisoner and sent to Kilkenny, where they were held until eventually released by the intercession of the Duchess of Buckingham, Antrim’s wife. Glengarry returned to the Highlands and made every possible effort to encourage another rising. James MacDonald of Sleate, who had submitted to Cromwell’s government, then began the history of the Sleate MacDonalds’ betrayal of the Clan to the English and wrote to Colonel Fitch, Governor of Inverness that: “the laird of Glengarry and some other Highlanders, are drawing to an head and intend to disquiet the peace of the country.”

        The year 1649 was fatal for the Irish. Charles I was executed January 30, at Whitehall in London and Cromwell proclaimed the “Commonwealth and Free-State.” Rinuccini and his policies were repudiated by the Irish Confederation and he left Ireland, accompanied to the ship “San Pietro” in February, 1649 by a crowd of weeping common Irishmen, the vast majority of whom adored and supported him. In August, 1649, Cromwell invaded Ireland with an overwhelming force of 12,000 “Ironsides” and Owen Roe ÓNeill died three months later amid the ruins of his country. Cromwell could not defeat the illusive ÓNeill in the field, so English agents poisoned him, as they had so many others. For the outnumbered and outgunned Irish to have defeated England without outside help would have taken a miracle, and that is precisely what was expected. But could it be said that the miracle was merely deferred for a hundred and thirty years and granted to Irishmen and Scots at Yorktown?

       Colonel James MacDonnell, 7th of Leinster, had been born at Tighearna Coille in 1617. His succession as chieftain of the MacDonnells of Leinster remains unbroken and continues in Ireland. But, after his participation in the Catholic Confederacy, William Petty’s 1659 Census shows that he, and all the MacDonnells of Tighearna Coille, had changed their names to MacDaniell and continued to reside at Tighearna Coille without color of law for more than twenty years, and MacDonnells continued to be interred in Portnahinch Cemetery as late as 1820. But James MacDonnell’s manor and lands were forfeited to the crown in an inquisition taken at Maryborough in 1679. His widow, Margaret MacDonnell, was allowed her dower rights, on the condition that she become Protestant, but the estate was never restored to the MacDonnells. “The Book Of Survey And Distribution,” in the Dublin Record Office, shows that the various townlands of the manor were apportioned to some seven or eight different individuals. William Legatt was given Tighearna Coille. The most prominent branch of the family remaining in Ireland at that time appears to have been the family of Alexander MacBrian, Governor of Wicklow, who lived until 1683. Hercules H G MacDonnell, in his 1892 account of the MacDonnells of Tynekill (sic), speculates that James MacDonnell of Leinster moved, with his family, to Antrim, citing as evidence that they deposited in Glenarm Castle the patent granted to James in 1639. However, Glenarm Castle was not built until long after James died in London in 1661. Dun Luths Castle was the principal residence of the MacDonnells of Antrim until the death of the 2nd Earl of Antrim in 1683.

        Cromwell’s forces attacked Kilkenny in 1650 and it surrendered. Ormonde eventually surrendered to a parliamentary commander. Apparently Cromwell’s successors in Ireland, Ireton and Ludlow, believed their own propaganda regarding atrocities by the Irish and the Irish Confederacy was ended by the slaughter of the survivors (including women and children) of the besieged garrisons of Drogheda and Wexford. The “Ironsides” treated the townspeople and 2,600 Catholic soldiers of Drogheda without mercy, putting them all to the sword, repeating the massacre at Wexford, two weeks later. Although no worse than the Confederate destruction of Cashel had been in 1646, the sack of Drogheda remains prominent in Irish folk memory.

        The cost of the war was horrible, and actually reduced the Irish population by half. The Covenanters considered it a holy crusade, and gloried in the slaughter of “Malignants,” as they called the royalists. Even one of their most noted Scottish clergy, David Dickson, could shout when he heard of the destruction of his opponents, “The work goes bonnily on!” It is difficult to understand how, in Ireland, such a hateful, merciless sentence could be imposed on a defeated Christian people by a Christian victor. But our understanding is aided by realizing that not only was Cromwell a bigoted Puritan, his policy in Ireland also met a political need. He had many political debts to pay, English veterans were a potential source of turbulence in England and they were perfect as settlers for a conquered and depopulated Ireland. Cromwell’s efficiency, if not his character, was admirable and extended to his purging of Catholicism. To the Governor of New Ross, who sought assurances for liberty of conscience, Cromwell replied:
 

ÓCallaghan Tomb, Clonmeen Cemetery, Co. Cork

Rathmaher House, The Ó Callaghan Castle, Banteer, Co. Cork
Where Colkitto’s body was taken after his murder.

The Chieftain's Ford, Blackwater River, Co. Cork

“I meddle not with any man’s conscience, but if by liberty of conscience you mean liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know, where the Parliament of England have power, that will not be allowed of.”

        But Cromwell and his henchmen knew well that their policy was indefensible, and they began the suppression of events which has persisted to this day in both Scotland and Ireland, in a blatant attempt to wipe the Gael from the pages of history. David Sheehy, Diocessan Archivist for Dublin Diocese, informs us that there are no parish records at all for the entire 17th Century. But the oral traditions of the Gael are strong and , at least a few of, the atrocities have been remembered.

        Approximately 300 people attended Mass, celebrated by Fr Danny MacDonald, to commemorate the 350th anniversary of the murder of Fr Nicholas Mayler, parish priest of Tomhaggard in Ferns Diocese in Co. Wexford. He and his parishoners had secretly gathered on Christmas morning, 1653, for Mass in a corner of a field on the Devereux farm, after the village church had been destroyed by Cromwellian soldiers. They had placed a stone from the ruins of their church in this remote place to represent a Mass-Rock, and it is still there. But these Christians had been betrayed and a party of soldiers were hiding on the nearby "Cnoc na Furas" (Hill of Waiting - Knock of Furze). After the priest had begun saying Mass, the soldiers rushed forward, scattering the terrified congregation. Then shots rang out and Fr Mayler lay dead. Locals carried Fr Mayler's body for burial within the ruins of the village church, but his grave was never marked out of fear that it would be desecrated by Cromwell's roundheads. One parishioner, a Mrs Lambert, snatched up his chalice, wrapped it in her apron and hid it in the nearby Lingstown Lake. When things had quietened down, she recovered it and gave it to Fr Mayler's family. It remained in their possession for many years, before being returned to the parish after the restoration of the Catholic Church in Ireland in 1850. That same chalice was again used for the Anniversary Mass, 350 years later.

        The native Catholic Irish were exiled to the infertile west, the poorest land in Ireland, and none were allowed east of the Shannon. If he could prove he was not a rebel, he could claim land west of the Shannon from that confiscated from rebels. All land east of the Shannon was given to “Roundheads,” i.e.: Cromwell’s supporters. Whom the Sasunnaich called rebels were allowed no means of livelihood anywhere in Ireland. Plague then further decimated those who were left, so that English troops told of traveling twenty or thirty miles across the countryside without seeing a living soul. It is no wonder that a deep desire for vengeance still burns in Irish hearts.

        But the new Protestant settlers, wishing to extend the Industrial Revolution to Ireland, found they needed a labor force. The towns of Belfast and Londonderry were laid out and thousands of Irish returned from west of the Shannon as tenants of the new landlords, while many farmers simply remained on their old land with new landlords. The most significant result of the transplantation was the establishment of a new, English-speaking, Protestant ruling class, mainly of English and Scottish origin; dominating a native, Roman Catholic, Gaelic-speaking peasantry. This Protestant Ascendancy then represented the status-quo in Ireland almost to the end of the 19th Century, except in eastern Ulster, where much of the peasantry was also Protestant, making their base even more secure there.

        The restoration of the Stuart monarchy in the Spring of 1660 changed everything. Estimates had Catholics holding three fifths of Ireland in 1641. By 1665, at the Restoration Settlement, they held one fifth, mostly in Connacht. The Catholic Irish survived on a subsistence economy based on potatoes and linen, almost completely excluded from the booming economy of the Protestants, who engaged in the export of beef, butter, hides, tallow and grain; while Ormonde returned as Lord Lieutenant and began to expand Dublin along the stately lines of a Baroque city.

        The natives were crushed and the only resistance came from “tories,” outlaws drawn from the ranks of the dispossessed who threatened the new rulers and owners throughout much of the country.  In the early modern Gaelic world a man’s first loyalty was to his family and kinsmen, then to his religion, and only finally to his sovereign and country. The MacDonnells, like many others in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland, had been forced to compromise and negotiate in order to survive at all. The Earl of Antrim’s grandfather Hugh ÓNeill did so in the Nine Years’ War of 1594 to 1603. His nephew Lord Dunsany, Sir Henry ÓNeill of Killeleagh, and many other Catholic nobles had all bent with the winds of change, made their peace with Cromwell, and were rewarded accordingly during the 1650s. They too were restored to their estates by Charles II. Irish Protestants such as Murrough ÓBrien and Lord Broghill also changed sides. But the Marquis of Antrim, like so many other Gaelic leaders since Brian Boru and Somhairle mac Gillebruide made the same mistakes and failed in all that mattered to the Clan. He did not take advantage of his stature to reunite the MacDonalds. Antrim produced no heirs to continue the dynasty, although his brother succeeded him, and he failed to establish a cause greater than himself.

        As an illustration of the pathetic irrelevance to which Irish Catholic MacDonnells had been reduced, a report of a Mr Geoghegan, leading a troop of bounty hunters in Co. Laois is informative:

"Wednesday, 15th December, 1680.  In the morning went to one Daniel McDaniel's house near Mountmellick where we found a very rich vestment and other materials belonging to a priest, which vestments we seized on and gave into our custody where they still remain."

        The ascension of James II, an avowed Catholic, to the English throne in 1685, raised the hopes of the Catholic Irish and alarmed the new Protestant rulers in Ireland. Their fears were heightened when a Catholic, Richard Talbot, Earl of Tirchonnaill, became James’ Lord Lieutenant for Ireland in 1687 and immediately raised a large, almost entirely Catholic, army for the crown. Some Protestants fled back to England, while James also ordered Irish troops to be sent to England. The simultaneous arrival of both groups from Ireland was among the most important factors in turning the king’s English subjects against him.

        The Catholic Stuarts were not popular in Protestant Great Britain and did little to help themselves. James II, more willful than skillful, insisted on his prerogatives at the expense of Parliament, precipitating another civil war. He was deposed from the English throne in 1688 by the “Glorious Revolution” and fled to France, his ship captained by Randell MacDonnell of Moye, one of the MacDonnells of Antrim. He was succeeded by his Protestant Son-in-law, William of Orange. Undaunted, James secured help from King Louis XIV of France and went to Ireland where he landed at Kinsale in County Cork on March 19, 1689.

        He was received as a savior by the Irish, with patriotic speeches and dancing, led by the Lord Deputy, Richard Talbot, who had been created “Earl of Tirchonnaill” by James four years previously . Along the road to Dublin, coats were laid beneath his horses’ hooves and women greeted him with kisses. Tirchonnaill had an army and held the entire country except Enniskillen and Derry. In Dublin, a Catholic parliament passed an act confiscating the property of almost all the Protestants in Ireland. Unlike England, sentiment was overwhelmingly in favor of a Catholic king assailed by heretics and Ireland was united for the first time since the rebellion of ÓNeill, a hundred years before.

        Talbot began to purge the army of Protestants, disbanding Protestant regiments and recruiting Irish levees to take their place. In only eighteen months, Talbot had removed 4,000 Protestants from the army, including 400 officers, and had replaced them with some 5,000 untrained Irish kern, although Catholics all. Apparently Brian MacDonnell of Bonabrougha in Leinster, son of Alexander of Wicklow, was one of those replaced.

        Seeing no future in a Catholic Ireland, Brian traveled to America and purchased, on November 18, 1689, 693 acres from William Penn on Red Clay Creek, William Penn Hundred, New Castle County Delaware. Apparently returning to Ireland to collect his family, Brian was just in time to regain his commission in the Westmeath Volunteer Regiment of Infantry commanded by Colonel Thomas ÓToole, his kinsman (Dorothy ÓToole was married to Walter MacEdmund MacDonnell of Baltiboye).

        Ironically, at the time, the pope was quarreling with the French monarchy over a question of the liberties of the Gallican Church, and was not in a position to support the French king’s protege in Ireland. So, at least passively, Pope Alexander VIII may have supported heretic King William of Orange. Louis XIV, at war with the Emperor and with the Dutch, had few resources to spare for war in Ireland. The French War Minister, Louvois, predicted the outcome:

“Whatever good intentions the Irish may have for the preservation of their country and their religion, if they fight with three-foot sticks against the troops of the Prince of Orange which will have swords and muskets, they will soon be killed or forced to flee.”

        James began his campaign in Ireland to recapture the English throne in December, 1688, on the recommendation of Alasdair, 3rd Earl of Antrim, attempting to take Londonderry and Enniskillen, the two Irish towns held by the Protestants. But it was the arrival of six companies of MacDonnell of Antrim’s regiment outside Derry, commanded by the earl’s natural son Daniel, that led to the failure of the king to take the town. As they marched along, an excited mob had gathered to accompany them, burning and looting as they went. After the town leaders had decided to admit James’ forces, fearing for their lives from the mob, thirteen young Protestant apprentices, crying "No Surrender!” closed the portcullis at the Ferry Quay Gate just as the town was about to surrender, denying his soldiers entry.

Saint Columba's Cathedral, (Anglican) Co. Derry
Where Protestants say the Jacobite cannon ball landed, with message attached.

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        Their boldness turned the townspeople in their favor. King James and the earl were left sitting outside the walls. Finally, damning the residents as “obstinate wretches,” the Stuart king gave up the siege. Consequently, he left Ulster as a bridgehead to William of Orange.       

        But James was back in the Spring and two thousand Protestants died of illness or starvation in the renewed assault. The English governor, however, escaped by climbing up a pear tree next to the walls and slipping away. He is still hanged in effigy by the Protestant residents. The cannonball that lies in the churchyard of the Anglican Cathedral of St Colomb was fired over the walls with a note attached proposing terms of surrender. The garrison would have none of it and the cannonball has remained in the churchyard where it fell (although Derry Catholics claim it fell in the churchyard of the Catholic Cathedral, a mile away, was stolen by the Protestants and moved to the Protestant churchyard). After 15 weeks, Derry was relieved by a Williamite fleet on July 28, 1689 when they, led by HMS Mountjoy, breached the boom across the River Foyle. Daniel and the Antrim Regiment attempted to hold The Glens, but were driven out and retreated to Dublin, where they remained until the following spring when James advanced to Drogheda.  And so began "An Cogadh Nam Dá Righ" (The War of the Two Kings).

James VII Stuart of Scots, James II of England
By Sir Peter Lely

Derry City Wall Overlooking the Protestant Enclave

Site of Dun Abhartaidh, (Fort of Festivals - Dunaverty or Dunavertie), Mull of Kintyre
Not a single stone of the fortifications remains in place.