The Spaniards Retreat and The Siege and Capture of Dunboy Castle
D’Aquila did not justify the hopes which the Irish had entertained of his protracted resistance. He was sick of thcountry and the people, and desired nothing but to see the last of both. The disasters of the campaign he attributed to the treachery and cowardice of the Irish. Almost immediately he began negotiations with Mountjoy, who, eager ” to see his heels towards Ireland,” treated him with the utmost consideration and politeness. The conditions were soon arranged. D’Aquila handed over to the Deputy not only the town of Kinsale, but also the various castles which had been entrusted to his care by the chiefs, their owners. In February he and his men set sail, taking with them their arms, supplies and money
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For more than a year the war dragged on, but, unless speedy succours came from abroad to the Irish, its end was a foregone conclusion. O’Sullivan Beare, indignant at the treachery of D’Aquila in delivering over to the English his ancestral castle of Dunboy, succeeded in recovering it by a stratagem, and put into it a small garrison of Irish troops. In June, Carew, with a force of over 3,000, laid siege to Dunboy. The little garrison resisted bravely, but after ten days the castle, battered by red-hot shots from the English cannon, was crumbling to pieces around them. Still they fought on, retreating first to the great hall, which had remained intact, and, when driven from there, to the basement, where they made their last stand.
When at last resistance was at an end, Mac Geoghegan, the Commander, mortally wounded, tried to crawl with a torch in his hand towards a barrel of powder, hoping to ignite it, so that the remains of the castle might be blown into the air, and victor and vanquished perish together. He was slain, however, before he could accomplish his purpose. The few Irish soldiers who had survived were executed ; of the garrison of 143 only 6 or 7 escaped death.
O’Sullivan had still some troops remaining, and they held out for a while, but when winter came on the condition of the homeless fugitives became desperate. The chief resolved to attempt to lead them out of Munster, to at least a temporary refuge in the still but partially conquered north. On the last day of December, 1602, they started from Glengarriff—a band of some thousand persons, of whom less than half were fighting men. For a fortnight they journeyed on, amidst the snow and rain, fighting almost daily battles against the English, the Anglo-Irish, and even their own countrymen, who, with surprising inhumanity, attacked them.
Desperation gave the wretched fugitives courage, and always they broke through their opponents. The Shannon they crossed in canoes made of the skins of their slaughtered horses. Numbers perished from cold, fatigue and hunger. Numbers also, too exhausted to go further, dropped out and found hiding places where they could. On the fourteenth day, the few who had endured to the end, thirty-five in all, including the chief himself, reached O’Rorke’s castle at Leitrim. O’Sullivan and his family afterwards escaped to Spain.
