Heroines or Victims? The Women of the Flight of the Earls

Abstract

The Flight of the Earls in September, 1607, was a miscalculated strategem neither anticipated nor welcomed by Catholic Europe. No vindications can refute that the earls, intimidated by the course of their failing political circumstances, hoped their appearance on the Continent would elicit greater support from their alleged benefactors, Europe's Catholic monarchies. A neglected side of this event has been the roles of the women caught up in this intemperate exodus. 1 Drawing on contemporary accounts and participant lists, it can be deduced that "3 score soldiers," including the crew of a "French barque," 2 took about sixty-five to seventy people to the Continent. 3 Among the refugees who boarded the eighty-ton vessel at Lough Swilly, seventeen passengers were women. Four can be identified by name, three through marital ties, and ten by their service affiliations. "That foreign ship has three of our women, of the nobles of the soil of Banba, the gentle ladies from Erin for whose loss all sorrowed." [End Page 56] 4 Catherine, Countess O'Neill, daughter of Sir Hugh Magennis and sister to Sir Arthur Magennis, the first viscount of Iveagh, became Hugh O'Neill's fourth wife in 1598. By the time of the flight, Catherine had given birth to three sons: Sean (John), Brian (Bernard) and Con (Constantine). The second woman was Nuala O'Donnell, the sister of Hugh Roe O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell and aunt of Rory O'Donnell, earl of Tyrconnell. Eldest of the noble women, Nuala O'Donnell had formerly been married to her first cousin Nial Garve O'Donnell. After ten years of marriage, she left her husband in 1600 after he had made a separate peace with the English. Finally, there was Rosa O'Dogarty, daughter of Sir John O'Dogarty, lord of Inishowen, and sister to Sir Cahir O'Dogarty, who married Cathbar, the earl of Tyrconnell's brother. They had one child, Hugh, after three years of marriage.

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