Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare, a giant of Irish history.
Posted by Jim on April 23, 2017
Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare, a giant of Irish history.
As an ally of Hugh O”Neill and therefore of the Cineal Eoghain this is the story a man who suffered greatly at hands of the Elizabethan war machine and who, faced with extermination, had no choice but march the remainder of his clan North through the length of Ireland in mid winter.If you are Cineal Eoghain and you meet an O”Sullivan from these parts of Cork, shake their hand and feed them well!
Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare, Prince of Beare, 1st Count of Berehaven (Irish: Domhnall Cam Ó Súilleabháin Bhéara) (1561–1618) was the last independent ruler of the O’Sullivan Beara sept(from the Beara Peninsula in Cork), and thus the last O’Sullivan Beare, a Gaelic princely title, in the southwest of Ireland during the early seventeenth century, when the English crown was attempting to secure their rule over the whole island.
Donal’s father was killed in 1563, but he was considered too young to inherit and the clan leadership passed to the chief’s surviving brother Eoin, who was confirmed by English authorities in Dublin with the title Lord of Beare and Bantry. To consolidate his position, Eoin accepted the authority of Queen Elizabeth I of England and was knighted. In 1587 Donal asserted his own claim to leadership of the clan, petitioning Dublin to put aside Eoin’s appointment with a claim derived from English laws based on absolute male primogeniture. These laws did not recognise age as relevant to inheritance rights. Keen to extend English legal authority over Ireland, the Dublin commission accepted Donal’s claim. He now became The O’Sullivan Beare, head of the clan.
By 1600 Munster had been devastated by battle, and the Gaelic clans lost over half a million acres (4,000 km²) of land to settlers from England following the defeat of the Desmond Rebellions. As a result of this in the lead up to the Nine Years’ War O’Sullivan kept his distance from the rebel cause, but in time he joined a confederation of Gaelic chiefs led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone and Hugh Roe O’Donnell of Ulster. Conflict had broken out in 1594, and O’Neill secured support from Philip II of Spain. The Spanish sent a force under the command of Don Juan D’Aquilla in 1601. O’Sullivan wrote to the Spanish king in submission to his authority, but the letter was intercepted by the English. In early 1602 the allied Irish and Spanish forces met the English at the Battle of Kinsale and were utterly and unnecessarily defeated.
O’Sullivan resolved to continue the struggle by taking control of the castle of Dunboy. In June 1602 English forces attacked Dunboy and the castle fell after a vicious siege. The entire company of 143 defenders was killed in combat or executed. Donal himself was absent from the siege of Dunboy, having travelled to Ulster for a conference with Hugh O’Neill. His letter to Philip left him with little hope of a pardon from the English, and he continued the fight with guerilla tactics.Later, after the fall of Dunboy Castle, Donal Cam battled on, seizing at least six castles around West Cork.
He concealed 300 of the women, children and aged of his community in a stronghold on Dursey Island, but this position was attacked, and the defenders hanged. In what was later termed the Dursey Massacre, Philip O’Sullivan Beare (c.1590-1660; nephew of Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare) wrote that the women and children of the Dursey stronghold were massacred by the English, who tied them back-to-back, threw them from the cliffs, and shot at them with muskets.
After the fall of Dursey and Dunboy, and by the winter of December 1602, Donal Cam and his followers had reached Glengarriff. They had stationed there for the winter, when Wilmot, leading the crown’s forces, attacked and seized Donal Cam’s 4,000 cattle and 2,000 sheep. With starvation and extermination now a real prospect O’Sullivan Beare, Lord of Beara and Bantry, gathered his remaining followers and set off northwards on a 500-kilometre march with 1,000 of his remaining people, starting on 31 December 1602. He hoped to meet Hugh O’Neill on the shores of Lough Neagh.
On the 31st, O’Sullivan began a march out of Glengarriff and with him he had 400 soldiers and 600 women, children, and servants. Their haste was so desperate that they had only one day’s provisions. On the second day of the journey the convoy was attacked from the rear as they crossed a ford near Liscarroll by a party of pro-English Barry’s from Buttevant. Four O’Sullivans were killed before the ambushers were driven off.
The convoy continued north over the Galtee mountains and through Tipperary. They suffered frequent attacks from their enemies but were successful in driving them off. During this part of the march, O’ Sullivan’s wife had to give her 2 year old son into the safe-keeping of a servant. This servant was able to escape and afterwards get the child safely to Spain.
On the ninth day of their trek the convoy, closely pursued by their enemies, crossed the Shannon near Portland in north Tipperary. They used the skins of a dozen horses to make curraghs and they carried the flesh for food. As they crossed the river they were attacked by Donough Mc Egan, the sheriff of Tipperary and the MacEgans of Redwood Castle, who tried to throw some of the women and children into the river. O’Sullivan killed the sheriff himself and the pursuers fled leaving many dead. They had to fight at Donohill in O’Dwyer’s country, where they raided the Earl of Ormonde’s foodstore.
Their journey now took them through O’Kelly lands and here they had to fight many skirmishes. They also raided the villages in the search for food.
At Aughrim the O’Sullivans were attacked by a large force of English. They managed to defeat them and killed their captain Henry Malby. After this as they advanced northwards and were barred entry at Glinsk Castle, County Galway, by the Burkes and they were harried by MacDavid Burke who did not want them on his lands.
Escaping from Burke the ever diminishing band came to the forest called Diamrach, or loneliness. Here the local people were friendly and supplied them with food. It must be remembered that this was the depth of winter and that by the time they reached the Curlew mountains the snow was falling heavily. Hunger and the cold, as well as their pursuers, were taking their toll on the diminishing band. They crossed the mountains on foot, those able to, had to carry the less able on their backs.
Fourteen days after he had led his convoy of 1,000 followers out of his own land, Daniell O’Sullivan reached the territory and protection of the O’Rourkes of Breffeny. Only 35 of them entered Leitrim Castle. Later a few more would drift in but the vast majority had fallen to their enemies, hunger and exposure.
On their arrival at The O’Rourke’s castle in Leitrim on 4 January 1603, after a fortnight’s hard marching and fighting, only 35 of the original 1,000 remained. O”Sullivan had fought a long rearguard action northwards through Ireland, through Munster, Connacht and Ulster, during which the much larger English force and their Irish allies fought him all the way. The march was marked by the suffering of the fleeing and starving O’Sullivans as they sought food from an already decimated Irish countryside in winter.
Most had died in battles or from exposure and hunger, and others had taken shelter or fled along the route. O’Sullivan Beare had marched over 500 kilometres, crossed the Shannon in the dark of a midwinter night (having taken just two days to make a boat of skin and hazel rods to carry 28 at a time the half-kilometre across the river), fought battles and constant skirmishes, and lost almost all of his people during the hardships of the journey.
In Leitrim, O’Sullivan Beare sought to join with other northern chiefs to fight the English, and organised a force to this end, but resistance ended when Hugh O’Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone signed the Treaty of Mellifont. O’Sullivan, like other members of the Gaelic nobility of Ireland who fled, sought exile, making his escape to Spain by ship.
(The Beara-Breifne Way long-distance walking trail follows closely the line of the historical march.]
When he left Ireland, Cornelius O’Driscoll and other Irish knights helped him and his clan. In Spain O’Sullivan Beare was welcomed by King Philip III. His princely status was reconfirmed, and he received a commission as an imperial general. His nephew, Philip O’Sullivan Beare, was important in this regard and his 1618 disquisition in Latin, A Briefe Relation of Ireland and the diversity of Irish in the same was influential.
In 1618, O’Sullivan Beare was murdered just as he was leaving Mass in the Plaza de Santo Domingo in Madrid. The murderer was John Bathe, a Dublin Englishman who had been disfigured in a duel by the prince’s nephew, on account of some arguments between Bathe and O’Sullivan; it is likely that the man was manipulated by the English Crown as an assassin and spy because of his old grievance.
The O’Sullivan Beare enjoyed a wide reputation, which helped to open doors for later soldiers from his line. About 165 years later, John Sullivan, regarded as a descendant of O’Sullivan Beare, served as a general in the American Revolution.