1 The Real Red Hugh By Hiram Morgan The anachronistic descriptions of war in Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh’s Life of Red Hugh, especially in the original translation by Fr Denis Murphy, are very eye-catching. Take for instance the battle of the Curlew pass in 1599. ‘As for the van of the army which O’Donnell had ordered to the front, they proceeded to march along the road to meet the foreign army until they came face to face. When they came near each other, the Irish discharged against them terrible showers of beautiful ash-handled javelins and swarms of sharp-pointed whizzing arrows from their long elastic bows, and volleys of blood-red spherical balls and leaden bullets from their straight-shooting, sharp-sighted guns. They were responded to by the English soldiers in the same way exactly with sharp-wounding leaden balls from their iron lock-guns and their far-sounding muskets, so that the missiles were redoubled between from one side and the other, and the reports and echoes and thundering noise were heard in the woods and groves, from the castles and stone fortresses of the neighbouring country. It was a great wonder that the timid people and the camp-followers did not run away through panic and frenzy on hearing the blasts of martial music and the echo and loud reports of the great shooting. Heroes were wounded and champions were hurt by them on both sides, so that the place where the division came to a close hand to hand encounter on that wintry morning there was many a death sound from the slaughter of heroes on every side, whose flesh was shattered into fragments and whose bones were broken by the lightening flashes of the well-directed leaden bullets, and from the showers of blood-red, well aimed javelins, the long-pointed, flat-barbed arrows and every sort of missile besides. Their battle leaders and chiefs in the combat told O’Donnell’s men not to remain opposite the foreigners, but to surround them completely in the fight. Thereupon they closed in on them on every side as they were commanded, and they proceeded to shoot and to fight against them rapidly, unsparingly so that they drove the wings of their army into their centre by the pressure and rapidity of the attack. The English turned their backs at last to the brave men of the north”. 1 There are many such marvellous passages. However the biography from an historical viewpoint takes on a different aspect. Essentially it is a eulogy of Red Hugh which at many points is a gross misrepresentation of the historical record. The whole approach is to put Hugh O’Donnell at the very centre of events, to make him the initiator of conspiracies and plans. Indeed he is depicted as the main Irish decision-maker in the Nine Years War leaving thereby in the shadows the most powerful lord in Ulster, Hugh O’Neill earl of Tyrone. This can be illustrated by a few points. For instance under 1593 Ó Cléirigh describes Hugh O’Donnell as deposing Turlough O’Neill and getting Hugh O’Neill inaugurated in his place. However it was the two Hughs in alliance who together destroyed Turlough’s power and furthermore Hugh O’Neill was only formally elected Turlough’s successor when the latter died in 1595. 2 Again under 1596 Ó Cléirigh describes Hugh O’Donnell as meeting Spanish agents alone and doing business with them on behalf of O’Neill and others. When another expedition arrived the following year, again O’Neill’s part in the proceedings goes unmentioned. Only at the arrival of another party in 1600 does Ó Cléirigh acknowledge O’Neill’s part in the meeting. 3 There are many other such instances where the biographer gives the central role to O’Donnell. For instance in the case of the battle of the Curlew pass cited at the beginning the credit elsewhere is given to O’Rourke and McDermott, though Lord President Sir Conyers Clifford’s head was delivered to Hugh O’Donnell, the theatre commander. 4 Plainly reliance on Ó Cléirigh is foolhardy, the more so where it is the only source. However the biographer does make some very interesting asides which are at odds with his normal line of argument. I want to look for the real Hugh O’Donnell combining all the sources English and Spanish as well as the Irish. All of these sources have their inherent biases. The greatest additional source of information on O’Donnell comes from the Irish State Papers. Most of these documents were written, collected and selected by English officials who had no great love for Hugh O’Donnell. However, used critically these 1 Denis Murphy S.J., The Life of Hugh Roe O’Donnell, (Dublin, 1895), p.217. 2 Beatha, I, 58-9; Hiram Morgan, Tyrone’s rebellion: the outbreak of the Nine Years War in Tudor Ireland (Woodbridge, 1993), 110-1, 188-9. 3 Beatha, I, 119-23, 140-41, 210-1, 282-5. 4 John Dymmok, ‘A Treatice of Ireland’, ed. Rev. R. Butler in Tracts relating to Ireland (Irish Archaeological Society, Dublin 1842), ii, 44-47; CPSI, viii, 331-5, John Baxter, ‘A declaration of my employments’, 20-12-1599.