Great O'Neill

O'Faoláin, Seán. The Great O'Neill - A biography of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, 1550-1616. Cork, Mercier, 1970, c1942. 21 cm. xii, 284 pages. Softcover. Excellent condition with only minor signs of external wear. Born in 1550, Hugh ONeill lived in England from the age of nine as a protege of Queen Elizabeth I. He returned to Ireland as Baron Dungannon and was proclaimed Earl of Tyrone in 1585 but when he went through the ancient ritual of becoming The ONeill, the chief of Tír Eoghain, in 1595, he had thrown down the gauntlet to Tudor power. Elizabeth sent a succession of commanders to suppress the traitor earl; the ensuing conflict, for which ONeill combined forces with Red Hugh ODonnell and other Gaelic chieftains, was the Nine Years War. The Battle of Kinsale, in which the Irish forces were defeated in 1601, marked the end of the possibility of a permanent victory for Gaelic Ireland. ONeill and ODonnell subsequently fled the country an episode known as The Flight of the Earls. ONeill travelled to Rome, where he lived in exile by the grace of the Pope and the King of Spain until his death in 1616. The Great ONeill first appeared in 1942 and the intervening years have confirmed the books standing as a modern classic. May be commended to the historian for its breadth and freshness of view and the brilliance of its writing - (Source: The Times Literary Supplement A series of pictures of wild grandeur and outlandish brilliance set against a background of Renaissance colour and turmoil.)