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While Bruce and O'Neil were coming up from the north, Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, as if to provide occupation for the Earl of Ulster, attacked and sacked the castle and town of Sligo, and wasted the adjacent country. The Earl, on hearing of the landing of the Scots, had mustered his forces at Athlone, and compelled the unwilling attendance of Felim O'Conor, with his clansmen.
This letter to a great extent revealed the double part Tyrconnell had been playing at the French court, and did much to undermine his credit with the better elements in the Irish army.
Tyrconnell himself sincerely wished to make his peace with William, so that he might once more enjoy the revenues of his estates. The Irish army was thoroughly determined to hold out to the end. With these conflicting desires and designs, no single-hearted and resolute action was possible.
In January, 1686, Lord Clarendon, son of the historian, assumed the government, in which he continued, till the 16th of March, 1687. The day following the national anniversary, Colonel Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, a Catholic, and the former agent for the Catholics, was installed as Lord Deputy.
The borders of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, like every other tribe-land, were frequently enlarged or contracted, according to the vigour or weakness of their chiefs or neighbours. In the age of which we now speak, Tyrconnell extended from the Erne to the Foyle, and Tyrone from the Foyle to Lough Neagh, with the exception of the extreme north of Berry and Antrim, which belonged to the O'Kanes.
While Bruce and O'Neil were coming up from the north, Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, as if to provide occupation for the Earl of Ulster, attacked and sacked the castle and town of Sligo, and wasted the adjacent country. The Earl, on hearing of the landing of the Scots, had mustered his forces at Athlone, and compelled the unwilling attendance of Felim O'Conor, with his clansmen.
While the nobles were still in England, feted by Henry in his royal palace of Greenwich, renouncing their Irish names to become English earls and barons, the Ulster chief, protesting that he would never again take the name of O'Neill, but content himself with the title of Earl of Tyrone; while O'Brien was being created Earl of Thomond; McWilliams, Earl of Clanricard; O'Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell; Kavanagh, Baron of Ballyann; and Fitzpatrick, Baron of Ossory; the clans at home, hearing in due time of those real treasons, were concerting plans for making their lords repent of their weakness or treachery, and for administering to them due punishment on their return.
O'Donnell rendezvoused at Ballymote, from which he set out, at the head of 2,500 men, of Tyrconnell and Connaught, on the 2nd day of November. O'Neil, with McDonnell of Antrim, McGennis of Down, McMahon of Monaghan, and others, his suffragans, marched at the head of between 3,000 and 4,000 men, through West-Meath towards Ormond.
It too was crushed; and, by the "flight of the earls" Tyrone and Tyrconnell was completed the work which had been commenced by Henry II. And so the third chapter of Irish history was ended. The seventeenth century is a terrible period of European history.
More than ten thousand foot had gathered "as if by instinct" to that city, and on the Clare side Sarsfield still kept together his cavalry, at whose head he rode to Galway and brought back. Tyrconnell.
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