RTÉ's
'Battle of Kinsale' comes under fire . .
.
 The
battle fought at Kinsale in the December of 1601 is
unquestionably one of the most significant events in Irish
history. Whether the general public is aware of this or not
is another matter entirely, as both the primary school and
junior certificate courses more or less gloss over the nine
years war. In fact, the primary course goes into it in as
much if not more detail as the junior certificate course. In
many schools the nine years war will not be mentioned in the
leaving certificate cycle as the c.1870 to 1970 course is by
far the most popular for those studying history. As the
public broadcaster then, RTE has a certain duty to educate
the people about the importance of this battle. It also has,
to my mind, a greater duty to make the battle and the events
surrounding it entertaining so as to interest the average
person watching.
The
historian, however, must be aware that not everyone wants to
listen to the labyrinthine moves and manoeuvres made by the
war’s protagonists. The programme makers, for their
part, must realise that one is rarely blessed with such
potential for drama as Kinsale, when O’Neill and O’Donnell
attempted to link up with 4,000 Spanish troops commanded by
an aristocrat disdainful of the enterprise, and destroy a
force under the command of a somewhat foppish but decidedly
competent English lord.
RTE
did, indeed, rise to the occasion and produced a documentary
to mark the 400th anniversary of Kinsale. The questions for
me are: Did it entertain? Did it educate? And was it
accurate? Unfortunately, of the three questions I could only
answer yes to one, and that yes would be a qualified
yes.
The
documentary itself runs approximately 50 minutes. It is
interesting to note that the Spanish do not even “arrive”
at Kinsale until about the 30th minute and that the battle
does not begin until the 39th. It is slightly misleading,
then, to say that this documentary is one about the battle
of Kinsale, though it is supposed to be.
The
great bulk of the programme deals with the events of the
Nine Years' War which led to the battle. These events are
glossed over and no attempt is ever made to explain why the
Irish lords in question rebelled. After an early appeal c.
1596 to Spain is mentioned, the programme turns to Irish
treatment of Armada survivors. We are told that O’Neill,
like other chiefs, killed the Spaniards washed up on the
Irish coast in a show of loyalty to the crown. While this is
true, the programme makes no mention of the fact the not all
Armada survivors received this summary treatment from O’Neill.
Indeed, the last letter the chief wrote before his death in
1616 was one seeking to gain Pedro Blanco a position from
Philip III of Spain. Blanco had found a position in O’Neill’s
service after having survived the Armada wreck and fought
alongside him through the Nine Years' War. Twenty-eight
years after first meeting, O’Neill was still making
efforts on behalf of an Armada survivor.
The
documentary moves on, lightly touching the Yellow Ford and
the growth in Irish power, noting the diminishing strength
of the English colonial rule, and then the arrival of the
2nd Earl of Essex with a particularly large force in an
effort to reverse the situation. Essex’s campaign,
however, was not to have the wished for impact as he soon
lost three-quarters of his men to “desertion and
disease” and the war had become, for the Irish, a
Catholic crusade.
The
programme states that Spain in 1599 promised to have an army
in Ireland within 3 months. Dr. John J. Silke, the leading
authority on the Spanish intervention in Ireland, has
written that Philip III was not in 1599 planning any attack
on Ireland. Silke writes that historians have been misled to
this conclusion by the strength of recorded contemporary
opinion that this attack was indeed going to take place.
(Silke 2000: 59) Dr. Silke notes, however, that Spain did
indeed verbally encourage the northern lords that year and
also provided them with 1,000 arquebuses, 1,000 pikes and
ammunition. The following year Philip also sent support in
the form of war materials. The Beatha Aodh Ruadh Uí
Domhnaill records the anger and disappointment of O’Neill
and O’Donnell upon receiving the sum of only 6,000
pounds in monetary support that same year. The documentary
makes no mention of these Spanish shipments of money and
weapons to the confederates.
The
programme turns to the religious dimension of the war.
Describing O’Neill’s making religion a sticking
point in the negotiations with the English after Essex had
departed with his tail between his legs. O’Neill
linked nationalism and religion, seeking to make it the duty
of Catholics to oppose the Protestant English. The programme
notes that O’Neill desperately needed the support of
the Anglo-Irish for his war to properly succeed. In order to
gain this support he sought a bull from the Papacy to
excommunicated those Catholics who would not take arms
against Elizabeth. This he could not gain, however. The
programme does not mention though that he did succeed in
getting indulgences for those who did take part, and that
his war received designation as a Holy crusade. Instead,
they state too simply that “O’Neill’s
Catholic crusade would get no help from Rome.”
The
documentary moves into 1600 and O’Neill is under
strain as he tries to deal with the new lord deputy,
Mountjoy. There is no definite sign of a Spanish force and a
garrison has been established in O’Neill’s rear
at Lough Foyle.
However,
the time is suddenly right for Spain. England finds itself
isolated in Europe and Philip III is determined for his
enterprise against the aged Elizabeth to succeed. A fleet
for Ireland is preparing in Lisbon.
We
are not informed of the number or composition of the fleet
or of the wrangling that took place over a landing site. We
are merely told that O’Neill and his allies were
desirous that the fleet should land anywhere on the west
coast so that a link-up could be effected but that it was
too late for this information to reach the Spaniards. By the
envoy’s return the fleet had departed. In actuality,
the royal council had already been informed that only a
force of 6,000 or more should land in Cork, one of 4,000
should make for Limerick, and if smaller than 3,000 it
should land in a northern port such as Killybegs. O’Neill
had to consider that a large enough force could take the
offensive against the English without confederate help,
while at the same time it would be very difficult for the
Ulster lords to provide adequate provisions for a large
force if it were to land in the North.
It’s
not that the programme makers are misinforming the viewers,
it’s just that they aren’t telling them very
much. They spend so much time superficially re-counting
events from the nine years war that there isn’t any
time left over to actually do Kinsale justice. There is no
mention of Del Aguilla’s belief that the fleet should
make for the North, nor of the arguments between the various
Spanish officers as to what they should do once Ireland was
sighted. Indeed, the fleet’s admiral, Don Diego de
Brochero does not even get his name mentioned.
We
are told that once the Spaniards did land in Kinsale that
they received no help from the Gaelic chiefs of Munster.
This is simply not the case. Shortly after the landfall,
Daniel O’Sullivan Beare arrived and on behalf of his
fellow chiefs offered Del Aguilla 2,000 men (1,000 armed and
1,000 to be armed by the Spanish) to be used to bar the way
of any English force before the arrival of the confederate
army. Don Juan rejected this offer of help as he had no word
from O’Neill as to whether he could trust these lords
or not. After O’Neill arrived, O’Sullivan did
come with men but the chance to get the jump on Mountjoy had
long since vanished.
The
programme mentions the fall of some of the forts surrounding
Kinsale to the English once they arrived and laid siege. It
neglects to mention, however, the nightly fighting between
the Spanish and the besiegers, the sallying forth and the
attacking of English trenches and Spanish bastions. A whole
story in itself is ignored.
Finally,
the programme comes to the battle of Kinsale and does with
it in a few minutes. It is almost bizarre that a documentary
entitled “The Battle of Kinsale” doesn’t
actually describe the battle. We are not told that the Irish
adopted a formation of 3 great unwieldy tericos. Nor that
one was commanded by O’Neill another by O’Donnell
and the third by Captain Tyrell. Poor Captain Tyrell doesn’t
get a mention in the whole programme.
The
superiority of the English horse is emphasised, as is the
inadequacy of the Irish horse to deal with it, but we are
not told that Mountjoy was one day away from sending his
cavalry to Cork due to a lack of victuals.
We
do not hear of the complicated plans for Tyrell to link up
with the Spaniards, nor of the small Spanish division
fighting with O’Neill, and it’s commander Alonso
de Ocampo’s urging of O’Neill to try and cut his
way through to Aguilla. The small tactical successes of the
Irish are not mentioned either. No word of the initial stand
of the Irish cavalry, or of Tyrell’s battalion holding
firm until relatively late in the day.
We
are not told that after Aguilla retreated behind Kinsale’s
walls, following this belated sally forth, that up to 300
Irish men were hung by Mountjoy in view of the town. All we
are told is that Aguilla surrendered to Mountjoy. No word
either that the Spanish were but days from being
re-inforced.
Quickly
then the programme is brought to a conclusion. O’Neill
we are told after his “flight” died in Rome a
broken man who “never gave up fighting”. Whether
this means that it is left for the viewer to decide if he
was broken or not, I don’t know. A fairly simple
reading of the facts tells us that O’Neill, though he
ended his days bitterly disappointed, never did give up. He
spent the last eight years of his life unhappily fighting
with pen instead of sword but fighting none the less as he
sought opportunity after opportunity to return to Ireland,
even if he was to return alone. The programme, though it
stressed that many of the Anglo-Irish did not support O’Neill,
fails to mention that the day was to come a few years after
the flight when they wished for his return—the
plantations and the religious persecution having
begun.
We
are told that none of O’Neill’s sons outlived
him, but even a glance at the genealogical chart in Tyrone’s
Rebellion[italic] by Hiram Morgan, who acted as
historical consultant for this programme, would show that
three of his sons outlived him.
Of
course this programme educates, most of things it says are
factually correct. I suspect, though, that this is because
it doesn’t say very much. Why it fails for me is
because it doesn’t say very much about its purpose for
being—the battle of Kinsale. As I said earlier it is a
colourful event in history, before the battle even began
there was the landing, the myriad of rivalries amongst the
Spanish, the failure of the commander by sea to keep them
supplied, the rejection of O’Sullivan’s offer of
help, and Aguilla’s brave defence of the town. When
the battle does come it is barely described. Too many
avenues are left unexplored, and unmentioned.
The
contributions by Hiram Morgan, Fr. Thomas O’Connor,
and Oscar Morales are all to the point but they are lost in
a programme unsure of itself. Sometimes it is jokey and
informal before returning to the dull recounting; Mountjoy,
we are told was a “natty dresser”. The narration
is delivered by a dull, slow, unexciting Ulster accent.
There is no sense of what the programme really needed—urgency.
It should have raced through the nine years war, giving
itself time to tackle the events at Kinsale in some detail.
It should have played up the excitement of the rivalries,
the siege, and the bloody battle.
It
meanders along with some things to enjoy on the way, such as
the sixteenth century costumes created by Lynn Williams and
worn in the “dramatisations”. It is a rare treat
to see Irish dress of this era brought to life.
I
could criticise the two playing O’Neill and O’Donnell
in these background enactments but I won’t. I accept
that this show didn’t have an unlimited budget and it
is par for the course in such documentaries that the actors
look nothing like those they are portraying. Suffice to say
that each actor is about ten years too old, and a deal more
than ten pounds too heavy. Indeed, O’Donnell has a
very tight hair cut, a long way from the “drooping
branched locks” desribed by the poet Giolla Brighde Ua
hEóghusa.
All
in all it was an opportunity lost. The programme to mark the
400th anniversary of the Battle of Kinsale was put into the
hands of careless people and was unrewarding as a result. I
will leave it to Fr. Thomas O’Connor to have the final
word on the Spanish intervention at Kinsale, as it also goes
some way to describing the show, “it came a little too
late, it came to the wrong place and there wasn’t
enough of it when it did come.”
Bibliography
Silke, John J., Kinsale : The Spanish Intervention in
Ireland at the End of the Elizabethan Wars, Four Courts
Press 2000
© Mícheal O Chomain MMII
About the
Author
Mícheal O Chomain is
currently studying Anthropology at the Dublin Business
School. His undergraduate thesis concentrates on aspects of
Hugh O'Neill's career.
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