Aodh Mór Ó Néill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone

Aodh Mór Ó Néill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone

Aodh Mór Ó Néill [ ˈeɪ moːɾ oːˈneːʎ ] ( Anglicized Hugh O'Neill ; * around 1540; † July 20, 1616 in Rome ) was an Irish clan chief ( taoiseach , chieftain ) of the late 16th century and 2nd Earl of Tyrone ( Iarla Thír Eoghain ). Hugh O'Neill is also often referred to as the 3rd Earl of Tyrone when Shane O'Neill is listed as the 2nd Earl of Tyrone. As the official successor of Conn O'Neill, Hugh O'Neill is considered, which is why the title 2nd Earl of Tyrone is correct. O'Neill played a major role in the re-conquest of Ireland by the Tudors and he was the leading figure in the resistance against English troops during the Nine Years War .

His early years

O'Neill was the second son of Matthew, the allegedly illegitimate but firstborn son of Conn O'Neill , 1st Earl of Tyrone . But the line of succession from Hugh O'Neill was opposed by the other branches of the O'Neill clan, specifically Shane O'Neill (son of Conn), who eventually had Matthew killed (1558).

After Brian, brother of Hugh and Baron von Dungannon , was murdered by Shane, his title passed to Hugh in 1562, who was expelled from Ulster and then went to the Pale , where the Hoveneden family took him in. After Shane's death (1567), Hugh returned to Ulster under the protection of the Lord Deputy of Ireland Sir Henry Sidney . In Tyrone , Hugh's cousin Turlough Luineach O'Neill had inherited Shane O'Neill as "The O'Neill" (title of head of the O'Neill clan), but was not accepted by the English as the legitimate successor to the 1st Earl of Tyrone accepted. The English authorities instead supported Hugh as the rightful heir and hoped for a subordinate ally in the Gaelic Ulster.

Hugh fought with the English in Ulster in 1580 during the 2nd Desmond Rebellion against Gerald Fitzgerald (15th Earl of Desmond ) and supported Sir John Perrot against the Scots of Ulster (" Scots of Ulster ") in 1584. The following year was it allowed him to serve as Earl of Tyrone in the Irish Parliament and in 1587, after a visit to the royal court in England, he was entitled to the lands of his grandfather Conn O'Neill in Ulster. The ongoing dispute with Turlough Luineach O'Neill was fueled by the English who wanted to weaken the power of Turlough (and the power of the O'Neills in general). However, after Turlough resigned in 1595 and assumed the title of "The O'Neill," Hugh was an unrivaled leader in the north of Ireland.

O'Neill's career was marked by an incessant double game: on the one hand he was submissive to English authority, on the other hand he allied himself with other Irish chieftains against the English government in Dublin . It seemed as if Hugh himself was unsure which strategy would be best for him as leader of the clan, an alliance with the English or a rebellion against the English presence in Ulster.

In the early 1590s, the English government tried to take control of Ulster with colonist Henry Bagenal . In 1591 O'Neill aroused the anger of Bagenal when he ran away with his sister Mabel, but already in 1593 he helped him fight Hugh Maguire at Belleek. After Mabel's death, O'Neill turned against the English government on all counts and sought support for his goals in Spain and Scotland . Up until this point, O'Neill had stayed in the background of the clashes in the simmering conflict, hoping to be appointed Lord President of Ulster through this reluctance . Queen Elizabeth I, however, suspected that O'Neill would have no interest in such a simple title. Instead, she feared that O'Neill was seeking more power to subvert her authority and rule as a kind of "Prince of Ulster". Because of this, she denied O'Neill the title, as well as any other title that gave him authority over Ulster in the name of the Crown. When it became clear that Henry Bagenal would receive the title of Lord President of Ulster, O'Neill intervened in the conflict and successfully raided an English fort on the Blackwater River in 1595, where Sir John Norreys was planning the submission of O'Neill. This was one of the reasons that led to the outbreak of the Nine Years War .

Nine Years War

Hugh O'Neill followed Shane O'Neill's principle of arming the people instead of relying on foreign mercenaries, which in a relatively short time gave him a sizeable army - supported by arquebuses and gunpowder from Spain and Scotland. At the Battle of Clontibret , O'Neill's army inflicted a first defeat on the English troops.

Despite traditional hostility between the O'Neill clan and the O'Donnell clan, O'Neill allied with Hugh Roe O'Donnell , son of Hugh O'Donnell. O'Neill and O'Donnell now came into direct contact with King Philip II of Spain . In April 1596 O'Neill received the promise of help from Spain, which, as a Catholic country, saw an opportunity to inflict defeat on Protestant England. O'Neill then made a retreat in order to buy time and promised loyalty to the English crown in order to avoid counter-attacks by the English. Although Sir John Norreys tried to get hold of O'Neills, his feigned loyalty was successful and he was able to prevent British interference in his field for over two years.

In 1598 a provisional armistice was signed and O'Neill received a formal pardon from Queen Elizabeth I. But a short time later O'Neill intervened again in the conflict and defeated an English army at the Battle of Yellow Ford . This battle, in which Henry Bagenal was killed, was England's greatest setback to date on Irish land. After Robert Devereux (2nd Earl of Essex ) had brought the south of the Irish island more or less under control with a 17,000 strong English army (with heavy losses), he met with O'Neill and they agreed on a new armistice - a fact which was heavily criticized in England.

Ultimately, the Nine Years War, and with it the fate of Hugh O'Neill, decided at the Battle of Kinsale (late 1601 to early 1602), the loss of which also sealed the end of O'Neill's efforts. O'Neill retired to Ulster, where he surrendered after some guerrilla fighting in 1603.

The "Escape of the Counts"

Despite the defeat, O'Neill still managed to get as much capital out of the outcome of the war as possible. He lost some power, but retained both his title and his lands. However, the limitation of his power (e.g. the power of rule over various feudal men) led from 1605 onwards that O'Neill had to fear imprisonment, which is why he refrained from a planned trip to London in 1607, where he asked the king for support wanted to ask.

Finally, Hugh O'Neill and Rory O'Donnell and their followers (90 people in all) left Rathmullan on September 14, 1607, hurriedly from the Irish island for Spain. This escape went down in the history books as the escape of the counts and paved the way for the English plantations in the north of Ireland, where thousands of English settlers were settled in Ulster.

Due to bad winds, O'Neill first reached France and the Netherlands before arriving in Rome in April 1608 , where he was received with all honors and even received a papal pension.

In 1613 O'Neill was declared an outlaw by the Irish Parliament and he died on July 20, 1616 in Rome. He is in the church of San Pietro in Montorio buried (Fig.) During his nine-year exile was planning O'Neill, but did not manage his return to Ireland again and again him.

O'Neill was married four times and had a number of children, both legitimate and illegitimate. One of his sons was Sean O'Neill, who was born in 1616 by the Spanish King Philip III. received the title of 3rd  Earl of Tyrone .

literature

• Ronald John McNeill: O'Neill . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 20 : Ode - Payment of Members . London 1911, section Hugh O'Neill (c. 1540-1616) , p. 107–111 (English, full text [ Wikisource ] - here pp. 109–111).

predecessor	Office	successor
Conn Ó Néill	Earl of Tyrone 1559-1607	Title forfeited