Desmond Rebellions - Second Desmond Rebellion

Second Desmond Rebellion

The second Desmond rebellion was sparked when James Fitzmaurice FitzGerald launched an invasion of Munster in 1579. During his exile in Europe, he had reinvented himself as a soldier of the counter-reformation, arguing that since the Pope's excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570 Irish Catholics no longer owed loyalty to a heretic monarch. The Pope granted Fitzmaurice an "indulgence" and supplied him with troops and money. Fitzmaurice landed at Smerwick, near Dingle (modern County Kerry) on July 18, 1579 with a small force of Spanish and Italian troops. He was joined in rebellion on August 1 by John of Desmond, a brother of the Earl, who had a large following among his kinsmen and the disaffected swordsmen of Munster. Other Gaelic clans and Old English families also joined in the rebellion. After Fitzmaurice was killed in a skirmish with the Clanwilliam Burkes on 18 August, John FitzGerald assumed leadership of the rebellion.

Gerald, the Earl of Desmond, initially resisted the call of the rebels and tried to remain neutral but gave in once the authorities had proclaimed him a traitor. The Earl joined the rebellion by sacking the towns of Youghal (on November 13) and Kinsale, and devastated the country of the English and their allies. However, by the summer of 1580, English troops under William Pelham and locally raised Irish forces under the Earl of Ormonde succeeded in bringing the rebellion under control, re-taking the south coast, destroying the lands of the Desmonds and their allies in the process, and killing their tenants. By capturing Carrigafoyle at Easter 1580, the principal Desmond castle at the mouth of Shannon river, they cut off the Geraldine forces from the rest of the country and prevented a landing of foreign troops into the main Munster ports. It looked as if the rebellion was fizzling out.

However, in July 1580, the rebellion spread to Leinster, under the leadership of Gaelic Irish chieftain Fiach MacHugh O'Byrne and the Pale lord Viscount Baltinglass, both motivated by Catholicism and hostility to the English administration. A large English force under the Lord Deputy of Ireland Earl Grey de Wilton was sent to subdue them, only to be ambushed and massacred at the battle of Glenmalure on 25 August, losing over 800 dead. However, the Leinster rebels were unable to capitalise on their victory or to effectively coordinate their strategy with the Munster insurgents.

On 10 September 1580, 600 papal troops landed at Smerwick in Kerry to support the rebellion, but were besieged in a fort at Dún an Óir. They surrendered after two days of bombardment and were then massacred. By relentless scorched-earth tactics, the English broke the momentum of the rebellion by mid 1581. By May 1581, most of the minor rebels and FitzGerald allies in Munster and Leinster had accepted Elizabeth I's offer of a general pardon. John of Desmond, in many ways the main leader of the rebellion, was killed north of Cork in early 1582.

For the Geraldine Earl however there could be no second pardon, and he was pursued by crown forces until the end. From 1581 to 1583, the war dragged on, with his supporters evading capture in the mountains of Kerry. The rebellion was finally ended on 2 November 1583 when the earl was hunted down and killed near Tralee in Kerry by the local clan O'Moriarty. The clan chief, Maurice, received 1000 pounds of silver from the English government for Desmond's head, which was sent to Queen Elizabeth. His body was triumphantly displayed on the walls of Cork.