End of the Desmond Insurrection
Above: Map of Tralee, Ireland
Desmond, with his brother John and Baltinglass, who had joined them, were encamped near Tralee, but they remained inactive ; though that, with the defeat of the foreign expedition, their last hope of success was bound to vanish, they must well have known. They may have intended marching to the help of the Spaniards, when the unexpected surrender of the fort disorganised their plans. Some months after (1581), John Fitzgerald was slain in a skirmish by one Thomas Fleming.
Baltinglass had fled to the and Fiach Mac Hugh O’Byrne had submitted, so, of the leaders of the rebellion, the Earl of Desmond alone remained. At first he gained some unimportant successes, but his followers dwindled more and more, until he became a mere fugitive, lurking with a small band amongst the woods and mountains.
Above: Map of The Baronies of Munster
Meanwhile Grey ranged far and wide through Munster, completing the ruin of the land, which only a few years before had been the richest and most prosperous in Ireland. Now, from the Rock of Cashel to the sea, the lowing of a cow could not be heard. The wretched people lay dead by the wayside. The survivors, “mere anatomies of death,” crept on their hands and knees from the woods and glens, where they had taken refuge, to feed on water cresses or sorrel, if they could find any, or on the very corpses which they scraped out of their graves. At length even Elizabeth recognised that things had gone too far. In 1582 she recalled Grey.
The Earl was now reduced to the last extremity. In the beginning of the winter of 1583-1584, he was wandering with a few followers in the neighbourhood of Tralee Bay. In their great need, the kerns seized some cows belonging to Owen Mac Donnell O’Moriarty, and drove them off. The owner followed, with some of his friends, to the Vale of Gleanagenty, a few miles from the town of Tralee. At dawn they came to a small hut, in which they found three persons only, of whom one, on being attacked, cried out: “lam the Earl of Desmond. Spare my life.”
Above: Map of London
A soldier named Daniel Kelly, anxious to obtain the Government reward, smashed his right arm with a stroke of his sword, and then, dragging him out, cut off his head. This grisly trophy was despatched to London, and there placed in the Tower. The Earl’s lands were declared forfeit to the Crown. Of the rights of his son there was no question.
