Flight of The Earls - The Journey

The Journey

The Earls set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, accompanied by ninety followers, many of them Ulster noblemen, and some members of their families. Several left their wives behind, hoping either to return or retrieve them later. The late Tomas Cardinal O’Fiaich, Archbishop of Armagh, gave a lecture at Rathmullan in September 1988 and recounted that the Earl of Tyrone allegedly “had a gold cross which contained a relic of the True Cross, and this he trailed in the water behind the ship, and according to O’Ciainain, it gave some relief from the storm” during the crossing to Quillebeuf-sur-Seine in Normandy, France; they finally reached the Continent on 4 October 1607. The significance of this act is also underlined by the fact that the date of the exile from Rathmullan was the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This supposed relic of the True Cross was probably a minor relic taken from that kept at Holy Cross Abbey which they had previously visited en route to Kinsale in 1601.

Their destination was Spain, but they disembarked in France and proceeded overland to Spanish Flanders, some remaining in Leuven, while the main party continued to Italy. They planned to return to Ireland and campaign for the recovery of their lands, with the support of Spain, but both died in exile. Tadhg Ó Cianáin subsequently described the journey in great detail.