The Flight of the Earls
The flight of the earls on September 4th, 1607, was the first of many departures from Ireland by native Irish over the following centuries.
The showdown between the English regime and the Gaelic lords of Ireland followed the planting of English settlers in Ireland from the 1570s/80s in Ulster and Munster to create colonies on confiscated land, perhaps on the Spanish model in the New World. Much of Ulster and northern Ireland had been controlled by the O’Neills for centuries and an uprising in the 1590s led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and his Ulster ally Red Hugh O’Donnell overran much of Ireland.
At a battle near Armagh in 1598 O’Neill took a government force unawares and killed hundreds of them, including their general. He sent to Spain for reinforcements and in 1601 some 3,500 Spanish troops landed at Kinsale in County Cork. O’Neill and O’Donnell marched south, but the English trounced the combined Irish and Spanish force on Christmas Day.
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