The Desmond Rebellions occurred in the 1569- 1573 and 1579-1583 in Munster in southern Ireland. They were rebellions of the Earl of Desmond dynasty—the Fitzgerald family or Geraldines—and their allies against the efforts of the Elizabethan English government to extend their control over the province of Munster. The rebellions were primarily about the independence of feudal lords from their monarch but also had an element of religious conflict (Roman Catholic against Protestant). The result of the rebellions was the destruction of the Desmond dynasty and the subsequent plantation or colonisation of Munster with English settlers. Events January 11 - First recorded lottery in England. ... Events January - articles of Warsaw Confederation signed, sanctioning religious freedom in Poland. ... Events January 6 - The Union of Atrecht united the southern Netherlands under the Duke of Parma, governor in the name of king Philip II of Spain. ... 1583 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... Statistics Area: 24,607. ... The title of Earl of Desmond has been held historically by lords in Ireland, first as a title outside of the peerage system and later as part of the English-controlled Peerage of Ireland. ... The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. ... Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... The Roman Catholic Church, most often spoken of simply as the Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with over one billion members. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland involved the seizure of land owned by the native Irish and granting of it to colonists (planters) from Britain. ... Colonisation (or colonization) is the act where life forms move into a distant area where their kind is sparse or not yet existing at all and set up new settlements in the area. ... This article is about the English as an ethnic group and nation. ...

Causes

The south of Ireland (the provinces of Munster and southern Leinster) was dominated, as it had been for over two centuries, by the Old English Butlers of Ormonde and Fitzgeralds of Desmond, who formed what were essentially miniature feudal principates. Both houses raised their own armed forces and imposed their own law, a mixture of Irish and English customs independent of the English government of Ireland in Dublin. However, since the 1530s, successive English administrations in Ireland had been trying to expand English control over all of Ireland (See Tudor re-conquest of Ireland). By the 1560s, their attention had turned to the south of Ireland and Henry Sidney, as Lord Deputy of Ireland, was charged with establishing the authority of the English government over the independent lordships there. His solution was the formation of "lord presidencies"—provincial military governors who would replace the local lords as military powers and keepers of the peace. The Old English were a wave of early medieval Norman, French, Welsh, English, Breton and Flemish settlers who went to Ireland to claim territory and lands in the wake of the Norman invasion. ... The peerage title Earl of Ormonde has a long and complex history. ... The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the English Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. ... Sir Henry Sidney (1529 - May 5, 1586), lord deputy of Ireland, was the eldest son of Sir William Sidney, a prominent politician and courtier in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, from both of whom he received extensive grants of land, including the manor of Penshurst in Kent... Official standard of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (also known as the Viceroy or in the Middle Ages as the Lord Deputy) was the head of Englands (pre-1707) or Britains (post 1707) administration in Ireland. ...

The local dynasties saw the presidencies as intrusions into their sphere of influence, and into their traditional violent competition with each other. This had seen the Butlers and Fitzgeralds fight a pitched battle against each other at Affane in Waterford in 1565. This was a blatant defiance of the Elizabethan state's law. Elizabeth I summoned the heads of both houses to London to explain their actions. However, the treatment of the dynasties was not even handed. Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde — who was the Queen's cousin — was pardoned, while both Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond (in 1567) and his brother, John of Desmond, widely regarded as the real military leader of the Fitzgeralds, (in 1568) were arrested and detained in the Tower of London on Ormonde’s urging. The Battle of Affane was fought in county Waterford, in south-eastern Ireland, in 1565, between the forces of the Fitzgerald Earl of Desmond on one side and the Butler Earl of Ormonde on the other. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ... // Events March 1 - the city of Rio de Janeiro is founded. ... Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England, Queen of France (in name only), and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Thomas Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormonde, also known as the 10th Earl was born circa 1531 and died on 22 November 1614. ... Gerald Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond (c. ... The Tower of London, seen from the River Thames, with a view of the water gate called Traitors Gate. ...

This decapitated the natural leadership of the Munster Geraldines and left the Desmond Earldom in the hands of a soldier, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the "captain general" of the Desmond military. Fitzmaurice had little stake in a new de-militarised order in Munster, which envisaged the abolition of the Irish lords’ private armies. A factor that drew wider support for Fitzmaurice was the prospect of land confiscations, which had been mooted by Sidney and Peter Carew, an English colonist. This ensured Fitzmaurice the support of important clans, notably MacCarthy Mor, O'Sullivan Beare and O'Keefe and two prominent Butlers –brothers of the Earl. Fitzmaurice himself had lost the land he had held at Kerricurrihy in County Cork, which had been leased instead to English colonists. He was also a devout Catholic, influenced by the counter-reformation, which made him see the Protestant Elizabethan governors as his enemies. To discourage Sidney from going ahead with the Lord Presidency for Munster and to re-establish Desmond primacy over the Butlers, he planned a rebellion against the English presence in the south and against the Earl of Ormonde. Fitzmaurice however had wider aims than simply the recovery of Fitzgerald supremecy within the context of the English Kingdom of Ireland. Before the rebellion, he secretly sent Maurice MacGibbon, Catholic Archbishop of Cashel to seek military aid from Phillip II of Spain. James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, a member of the sixteenth century ruling Geraldine dynasty in the province of Munster in Ireland, rebelled against the crown authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England in response to the onset of the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland and was deemed an archtraitor. ... Statistics Province: Munster County Town: Cork Code: C (CK proposed) Area: 7,457 km² Population (2006) 480,909 (including City of Cork); 361,766 (without Cork City) Website: www. ... The Counter-Reformation or the Catholic Reformation was a strong reaffirmation of the doctrine and structure of the Catholic Church, climaxing at the Council of Trent, partly in reaction to the growth of Protestantism. ... Capital Dublin Head of state King of Ireland Kings representative: Variously called Judiciar, Lord Deputy or Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Head of government: Chief Secretary for Ireland Parliament: Irish House of Commons and Irish House of Lords The Kingdom of Ireland was the name given to the English-ruled... Philip II of Spain (1527 – September 13, 1598), King of Spain (r. ...

The First Desmond Rebellion

Fitzmaurice launched his rebellion by attacking the English colony at Kerrycurihy south of Cork city in June 1569 before attacking Cork itself and those native lords who refused to join the rebellion. Fitxmaurice’s force of up to 4,500 men went on to besiege Kilkenny, seat of the Earls of Ormonde in July. In response, Sidney mobilised 600 English troops, who marched south from Dublin and another 400 troops landed by sea in Cork. Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormonde returned from London, where he had been at court, brought the rebel Butlers out of the rebellion and mobilised Gaelic Irish clans antagonistic to the Geraldines. Together, Ormonde, Sidney and Humphrey Gilbert, appointed as governor of Munster, began devastating the lands of Fitzmaurice's allies. Fitzmaurice's forces broke up, as individual lords had to retire to defend their own territories. Gilbert in particular was notorious for the terror tactics he employed, killing civilians at random and setting up a corridor of severed heads at the entrance to his camps. WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 51. ... Events January 11 - First recorded lottery in England. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Sir Humphrey Gilbert (c. ...

Sidney forced Fitzmaurice into the mountains of Kerry, from where he launched hit and run attacks on the English and their allies. By 1570, most of Fitzmaurice's allies had submitted to Sidney. The most important, Donal MacCarthy Mor surrendered in November 1569. Nevertheless, the guerrilla campaign dragged on for three more years. In February 1571, John Perrot was made Lord President of Munster, pursuing Fitzmaurice with 700 troops for over a year without success. Fitzmaurice had some victories, capturing an English ship near Kinsale and burning the town of Kilmallock in 1571, for example, but by early 1573, his force was reduced to less than 100 men. Fitzmaurice finally submitted on February 23, 1573, having negotiated a pardon for his life. However in 1574, he again became landless and in 1575 he sailed to France to seek help from the Catholic powers to start another rebellion. Statistics Province: Munster County Town: Tralee Code: KY Area: 4,746 km² Population (2006) 139,616 Website: www. ... Events January 23 - The assassination of regent James Stewart, Earl of Moray throws Scotland into civil war February 25 - Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England with the bull Regnans in Excelsis May 20 - Abraham Ortelius issues the first modern atlas. ... Sir John Perrot (c. ... Market Street in Kinsale, one of the towns oldest thoroughfares Kinsale (Cionn tSáile in Irish) is a town in County Cork, Ireland. ... Kilmallock (Cill Mocheallóg in Irish) is a town in south County Limerick, Ireland, near the border with County Cork. ... February 23 is the 54th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events January - articles of Warsaw Confederation signed, sanctioning religious freedom in Poland. ...

Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, and his brother John were released from prison to stabilise the situation and to reconstruct their shattered territory. Under a new settlement imposed after the rebellion, known as "composition", the Desmond’s military forces were limited by law to just 20 horsmen and their tenants made to pay rent to them rather supply military service or to quarter their soldiers. Perhaps the biggest winner of the first Desmond Rebellion was the Earl of Ormonde, who established himself as loyal to the English Crown and as the most powerful lord in the south of Ireland.

Although all of the local chiefs had submitted by the end of the rebellion, the methods used to suppress it provoked lingering resentment, especially among the Irish mercenaries; gall oglaigh or "gallowglass" as the English termed them, who had rallied to Fitzmaurice. William Drury, the new Lord President of Munster from 1576, executed around 700 of them in the years after the rebellion. Furthermore the aftermath of the rebellion, Gaelic customs such as Brehon Laws, Irish dress, bardic poetry and the maintaining of private armies were outlawed – things that were highly provocative to traditional Irish society. Fitzmaurice, by contrast, had deliberately emphasised the Gaelic character of the rebellion, wearing the Irish dress, speaking only Irish and referring to himself as the captain (taoiseach) of the Geraldines. Finally, Irish landowners continued to be threatened by the arrival of English colonists. All of these factors meant that, when Fitzmaurice returned from continental Europe to start a new rebellion, there were plenty of discontented people in Munster waiting to join him. The term Galloglas (or Gallowglass) is an Anglicisation of the Irish, Gallóglaigh (foreign soldiers), incorporating the word, Óglach, which is derived from oac, the Old Irish for youths, but later meaning soldier. The galloglas were a mercenary warrior élite among Gaelic-Norse clans residing in the highlands and Western... The Gaels are an ethno-linguistic group in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man, whose language is of the Gaelic (Goidelic) family, a division of Insular Celtic languages. ... The Brehon Laws were statutes that governed everyday life and politics in Ireland until the Norman invasion of 1171 (the word Brehon is an Anglicisation of breitheamh (earlier brithem), the Irish word for a judge). ...

The Second Desmond Rebellion

Main article: Second Desmond Rebellion

The second Desmond rebellion was sparked when James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald launched an invasion of Munster in 1579. During his exile in Europe, he had reinvented himself as a soldier of the counter-reformation, arguing that since the Pope's excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 Irish Catholics no longer owed loyalty to a heretic monarch. The Pope granted Fitzmaurice an "indulgence" and supplied him with troops and money. Fitzmaurice landed at Smerwick, near Dingle (modern County Kerry) on July 18 1579 with a small force of Spanish and Italian troops. He was joined in rebellion on August 1 by John of Desmond, a brother of the Earl, who had a large following among his kinsmen and the disaffected swordsmen of Munster. Other Gaelic clans and Old English families also joined in the rebellion. After Fitzmaurice was killed in a skirmish with the Clanwilliam Burkes on August 18, John Fitzgerald assumed leadership of the rebellion. The Second Desmond rebellion was the more significant and widespread of the two Desmond Rebellions launched by the Fitzgerald dynasty of the Desmond area of Munster, Ireland in the 1560s. ... James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, a member of the sixteenth century ruling Geraldine dynasty in the province of Munster in Ireland, rebelled against the crown authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England in response to the onset of the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland and was deemed an archtraitor. ... The Counter-Reformation or the Catholic Reformation was a strong reaffirmation of the doctrine and structure of the Catholic Church, climaxing at the Council of Trent, partly in reaction to the growth of Protestantism. ... Saint Pius V, né Antonio Ghislieri, from 1518 called Michele Ghislieri (January 17, 1504 – May 1, 1572) was pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. ... In Latin Catholic theology, an indulgence is the remission granted by the Church of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven by God. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ... Statistics Province: Munster County Town: Tralee Code: KY Area: 4,746 km² Population (2006) 139,616 Website: www. ... Events January 6 - The Union of Atrecht united the southern Netherlands under the Duke of Parma, governor in the name of king Philip II of Spain. ...

Gerald, the Earl of Desmond, initially resisted the call of the rebels and tried to remain neutral but gave in once the authorities had proclaimed him a traitor. The Earl joined the rebellion by sacking the towns of Youghal (on November 13) and Kinsale, and devastated the country of the English and their allies. However, by the summer of 1580, English troops under William Pelham and locally raised Irish forces under the Earl of Ormonde succeeded in bringing the rebellion under control, re-taking the south coast, destroying the lands of the Desmonds and their allies in the process, and killing their tenants. By capturing Carrigafoyle at Easter 1580, the principal Desmond castle at the mouth of Shannon river, they cut off the Geraldine forces from the rest of the country and prevented a landing of foreign troops into the main Munster ports. It looked as if the rebellion was fizzling out. In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to ones nation. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 51. ... Market Street in Kinsale, one of the towns oldest thoroughfares Kinsale (Cionn tSáile in Irish) is a town in County Cork, Ireland. ... The siege of Carrigafoyle Castle took place at Easter in 1580 on the left bank of the river Shannon in modern County Limerick in western Ireland. ... Easter, also known as Pascha (Greek Πάσχα: Passover), the Feast of the Resurrection, the Sunday of the Resurrection, or Resurrection Day, is the most important religious feast of the Christian liturgical year, observed between late March and late April (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity). ... The River Shannon (Irish: Sionainn), Irelands longest river, divides the West of Ireland (mostly the province of Connaught) from the east and south (Leinster and most of Munster). ...

However, in July 1580, the rebellion spread to Leinster, under the leadership of Gaelic Irish chieftain Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne and the Pale lord Viscount Baltinglass—motivated by Catholicism and hostility to the English. A large English force under the Lord Deputy of Ireland Earl Grey de Wilton were sent to subdue them, only to be ambushed and massacred at the battle of Glenmalure on August 25, losing over 800 dead. However, the Leinster rebels were unable to capitalise on their victory or to effectively coordinate their strategy with the Munster insurgents. Statistics Area: 19,774. ... Fiach MacHugh OByrne (1544-1597) was chief of the OByrne clan during the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland. ... The Pale refers to at least two geographic areas: The Pale of Settlement in which imperial Russia allowed Jews to live. ... Baltinglass is a village in County Wicklow in the Republic of Ireland. ... Official standard of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (also known as the Viceroy or in the Middle Ages as the Lord Deputy) was the head of Englands (pre-1707) or Britains (post 1707) administration in Ireland. ... Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey of Wilton was a baron in the Peerage of England. ... This article needs cleanup. ...

On September 10, 1580, 600 Papal troops, landed at Smerwick in Kerry to support the rebellion, but were besieged in a fort at Dun an Oir. They surrendered after two days of bombardment and were then massacred. By relentless scorched earth tactics, the English broke the momentum of the rebellion by mid 1581. By May 1581, most of the minor rebels and Fitzgerald allies in Munster and Leinster had accepted Elisaneth I's offer of a general pardon. Even worse, John of Desmond, in many ways the main leader of the rebellion, was killed north of Cork in early 1582. September 10 is the 253rd day of the year (254th in leap years). ... Events March 1 - Michel de Montaigne signs the preface to his most significant work, Essays. ... Events January 16 - English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism April 4 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I. July 26 - The Northern Netherlands proclaim their independence from Spain in the Oath of Abjuration. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 51. ...

For the Geraldine Earl however there would be no pardon, and he was pursued by crown forces until the end. From 1581 to 1583, the war dragged on, with the remaining Geraldines evading capture in the mountains of Kerry. The rebellion was finally ended on 2 November 1583 when the earl was hunted down and killed near Tralee in Kerry by the local clan O'Moriarty. The clan chief, Maurice, received 1000 pounds of silver from the English government for Desmond's head, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth. His body was triumphantly displayed on the walls of Cork. 1583 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 52. ...

The aftermath

After three years of scorched earth warfare, famine hit Munster. In April 1582, the provost marshal of Munster, Sir Warham St Leger, estimated that 30,000 people had died of famine in the previous six months. Plague broke out in Cork city, where the country people fled to avoid the fighting. People continued to die of famine and plague long after the war had ended, and it is estimated that by 1589 one third of the province's population had died. Grey was recalled by Elizabeth I for his excessive brutality. Two famous accounts tell us of the devastation of Munster after the Desmond rebellion. The first is from the Gaelic Annals of the Four Masters: A famine is a social and economic crisis that is commonly accompanied by widespread malnutrition, starvation, epidemic and increased mortality. ... Events January 15 - Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to Poland February 24 - Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar. ... WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: 51. ... Events Rebellion of the Catholic League against King Henry III of France, in revenge for his murder of Duke Henry of Guise. ... Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England, Queen of France (in name only), and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. ... Signature page from the Annals of the Four Masters Entry for A.D. 432 The Annals of the Four Masters or the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters are a chronicle of medieval Irish history. ...

the whole tract of country from Waterford to Lothra, and from Cnamhchoill to the county of Kilkenny, was suffered to remain one surface of weeds and waste… At this period it was commonly said, that the lowing of a cow, or the whistle of the ploughboy, could scarcely be heard from Dun-Caoin to Cashel in Munster.

The second is from the View of the Present State of Ireland, written by English poet Edmund Spenser, who fought in the campaign: Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (c. ...

In those late wars in Munster; for notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought they could have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the wood and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves; they did eat of the carrions, happy where they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.

The wars of the 1570s and 1580s marked a watershed in Ireland. Although English control over the country was still far from total, the Geraldine axis of power had been annihilated, and Munster was "planted" with English colonists following the parliamentary arrangements of 1585. Following a survey begun in 1584 by Sir Valentine Browne, Knight, Surveyor General of Ireland, the thousands of English soldiers and administrators who had been imported to deal with the rebellion were allocated land in the Munster Plantation of Desmond's confiscated estates. The Elizabethan conquest of Ireland was completed after the subsequent Nine Years War in Ulster and the extension of plantation policy to other parts of the country. Sir Valentine Browne, of Crofts, Lincolnshire, (later of Ross Castle, Killarney) was an English politician. ... The Surveyor General is an official responsible for government surveying in a specific country or territory. ... Plantations in 16th and 17th century Ireland involved the seizure of land owned by the native Irish and granting of it to colonists (planters) from Britain. ... The Tudor re-conquest of Ireland took place under the English Tudor dynasty during the 16th century. ... The Nine Years War (Irish: Cogadh na Naoi mBliana) in Ireland took place from 1594 to 1603 and is also known as Tyrones Rebellion. ... Statistics Area: 24,481 km² Population (2006 estimate) 1,993,918 Ulster (Irish: Cúige Uladh, IPA: ) forms one of the four traditional provinces of Ireland. ...

Sources

• Colm Lennon, Sixteenth Century Ireland – The Incomplete Conquest, Dublin 1994.
• Edward O'Mahony, Baltimore, the O'Driscolls, and the end of Gaelic civilisation, 1538-1615, Mizen Journal, no. 8 (2000): 110-127.
• Nicholas Canny, The Elizabethan Conquest of Ireland, Harvester Press Ltd, Sussex 1976.
• Nicholas Canny, Making Ireland British 1580-1650, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2001.

See also

• Tudor re-conquest of Ireland
• Early Modern Ireland 1536-1691
• county Desmond