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Shane O'Neill's Letter to the Lord Deputy.
Translated by T. O'Neill Russell.
THE following interesting letter in the Irish language from the celebrated but unfortunate Shane O'Neill to the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has never been correctly translated. A photograph of it, and a very incorrect transliteration and translation of it may be seen in "The National Manuscripts of Ireland," the original is in the British Museum, London.
The Irish of the letter is hardly at all different from the Irish of the present day, except for the archaic spelling of some words; but in spite of the modern form of the language in which the letter is written, it is about as tough a piece of Irish as could well be found to translate correctly owing to its total want of punctuation and the many and unusual contractions with which it abounds.
The transliteration and translation of it in the National Manuscripts of Ireland are very incorrect. I will not guarantee that the following version of it is absolutely correct for there are a few words in it which, owing to the contracted forms in which they are written, and the partial defacement of some of the letters, are very hard to make out. Of the dozen or more letters which Shane O'Neill says he wrote to the Deputy, or Justiciary, there seems to be but two of them preserved, namely, the following one and another which may be seen in the "Fior-Chairsearch na h-Eireann," published by Sealy, Bryers and Walker some four years ago.
It does not seem to be known whether the following letter is in the handwriting of Shane himself, or his secretary; but experts seem to think that the signature is in a different hand from that of the letter, and that the former is really Shane's writing.
It would appear that it was the Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Deputy in 1561, and to whom Shane wrote the letter; but whenever Sussex went to England either the Earl of Kildare or Sir W. Fitzwilliam used to act as Deputy, and it is not easy to find out which of them was in office in 1561, when Shane wrote the following letter:
Shane was one of the most unfortunate of the O'Neills. The great mistake of his life was his wanton attack on the Cineal Connaill, as the O'Donnels and the people of Donegal were then called. It was with great truth he was called "Seann an diomuis" or Shane of Pride. He could not brook any rival in Ulster, and aspired to be king of the whole province; hence his hatred of the O'Donnells, and his consequent ruin.
According to the State Papers, Shane had an army of 5,000 foot and about 1,000 horse. Sussex made many complaints against him, but never gained a victory over him, but suffered many defeats. Shane's pride is made apparent by what Sir Henry Sydney (the deputy who succeeded Sussex) said of Shane: "I believe Lucifer was never puffed up with more pride and ambition than O'Neill is. He says of his attack on us, "If it were to do again I would do it for my ancestors were Kings of Ulster, and Ulster was theirs, and Ulster is mine, and shall be mine."
Sidney seems to have been in great terror of Shane, for he wrote to the Earl of Leicester saying, "O'Neill continually keepeth 600 armed men. He is able to bring to the field 1,000 horsemen and 4,000 footmen; he hath already in Dundrum (Co. Down), as I am credibly advertised, 200 tuns of wine, and much more he looketh for; he is the only strong man in Ireland; his country was never so rich or so inhabited; he armeth and weaponeth all the peasants of his country, the first that ever so did of an Irishman; he hath agents continually in the Courts of Scotland, and with divers potentates of the Irish Scots; he is able if he will, to burn and spoil to Dublin gates and go away unfought."
But great a man as Shane O'Neill undoubtedly was. he had many faults, and his greatest fault was his ambition. He wanted to be supreme lord of Ulster; he was jealous of the Cineal Connaill, or O'Donnells, knowing that they were the only Irish of the province who would oppose his absolute power and sway in it He therefore attacked them in an apparently most wanton manner, and without any just cause, in the year 1567, but was defeated by them, and his army almost annihilated himself barely escaping. The Four Masters say that he lost 1.300 men, that there there were multitudes drowned in the flight across the river Swilly, and that some stated that his entire loss was over 3,000 men.
After Shane's defeat by the Cineal Connaill, he sought refuge among the Scotch of Antrim. They had been for a long time friends and allies of Shane, and he seems to have invited them to make settlements in Antrim; for in those days the Scotch, both highlanders and lowlanders, were allies and friends of the Irish, and both the O'Neills and O'Donnells were seldom without Scotch—mostly Highlanders—fighting under them against the English. But Shane had maltreated the Scotch. He feared they were getting to be too powerful and shortly before his defeat by the O'Donnells he had attacked them, defeated them and captured their two principel leaders. Those were the "friends" to whom Shane fled after his defeat by the Cineal Connaill. It is hardly to be wondered at that they killed him. He was hacked to pieces by the Scotch, and we are told that his body, wrapped in a kern's old shirt, was thrown into a pit near the place of his assassination. The English had offered a reward of 1,000 marks a mark was 13s 4d) for his head, and £500 "to him who shall kill him," though he bring neither head nor bodie." The last sentence is copied from the State Papers.
Shane's head was sent "pickled in a pipkin" to Sidney, who was then deputy. It was Captain Wm. Piers, an English officer. Governor of Carrickfergus, who sent Shane's head to Dublin and got the reward. It is said in the life of Shane in the National Biography that his head was seen stuck on a pike over Dublin Castle in 1571. It was the barbarism of this act that inspired the author of the magnificient poem, "Shane's Head." Sussex, the English Deputy, tried England's often used plan of getting rid of her enemies, for he tried to bribe some of Shane's people to assassinate him. This fact is stated openly in Shane's life in the National Biography.
It would appear that Shane got the loan of the money asked by him in the following letter, for he visited Queen Elizabeth in London in 1562, when he is said by English authorities to have publicly submitted to her; but this statement must be taken as entirely unproved, and comes from a very unreliable source. Shane was accom-
