Four hundred years ago, the Ulster Hughs were rather restless. Hugh O'Donnell and Hugh O'Neill, Earls of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, found the interference of their would-be overlords in Dublin Castle somewhat irksome, and there were frequent skirmishes as each side tried to establish its control.
The outcome is a familiar story to us all. In 1601 the Spaniards, happy to help any enemy of England, chose perhaps the most inconvenient spot in all the country to effect a landing. Don Juan d'Aquila arrived in Cork and took possession of Kinsale, and so our Ulster heroes had to march 300 miles to meet him.
Meanwhile, the new Lord Deputy, Lord Mountjoy, put d'Aquila and his fellow Spaniards under siege and stood between them and the approaching earls. In the end Mountjoy defeated the Ulster chieftains on the outskirts of Kinsale, and Don Juan surrendered shortly afterwards, 396 years ago tomorrow, in fact, on December 21st, 1601.
The Spaniards obtained very favourable terms. Don Juan demanded that his forces be allowed to leave "with ensigns flying and their arms in hand"; in short, with all the honours of war and none of the disgrace attending a defeated army. To this, it seems, Mountjoy most readily agreed, and many people often wondered why. But as with so many historical events, the weather played a part. The winds in these parts, as we know, are predominantly westerly, and it so happened that the winds during December 1601 blew particularly steadily from this direction. In addition, Mountjoy was running very short of victuals, and the persistent westerly winds not only precluded speedy relief in this respect for him from Bristol, but were also favourable for any reinforcements for Don Juan that might be on their way from Spain.
All things considered, it seemed to Mountjoy unwise to gamble on a change of wind, and better to bring matters to a swift conclusion; hence his agreement to the Spaniards' rather cheeky terms. And as it happened, the winds continued to blow steadily from the west until the end of January.
The whole event, of course, was a fiasco for the Ulster earls. O'Neill submitted to Dublin Castle rule some two years later, and in 1607 he and O'Donnell left Lough Swilly for the Continent; they planned to go to Spain, arrived in France, sought refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, and eventually turned up in Rome, where they were welcomed at the gates by seven cardinals. Meanwhile at home, the Plantation of Ulster got under way in earnest, and the rest is history.