Everything about Hugh Maguire totally explained
Hugh Maguire (died 1600) was the Lord of
Fermanagh in
Ireland during the reign of
Elizabeth I and leader of the ancient Maguire clan; he died fighting crown authority during the
Nine Years War.
Early career
Maguire's country was in the southern part of the
province of
Ulster, a terrain difficult of access as it was covered with forest, lakes and rivers. The crown authorities made sporadic attempts to subdue the clan, and in 1586 Maguire surrendered to the
English and was pardoned in return for an agreement to pay 500
beeves to the crown, of which 200 were appropriated by the lord deputy, Sir
John Perrot as his perquisite for proposing to make Maguire a captain of the country; this proposal wasn't carried through, even though Maguire had lodged three pledges for his loyalty in
Dublin Castle.
In 1587 Maguire, along with
Art O'Neill's forces, attacked and plundered a party of
Scots which had invaded
Down; on their return towards the
river Erne, Maguire attacked O'Neill's men and killed and wounded many of them. In 1588 he was in league with Sir
Brian O'Rourke, the Burkes and the
Spanish following the wreckage of the
Spanish Armada on the north and west coasts of Ireland. Thereafter, he was implicated in the plot of
Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, to murder
Con MacShane O'Neill, who petitioned the lord deputy, Sir
William Fitzwilliam for protection.
Lord of Fermanagh
In 1589 Maguire succeeded his father on the latter's death, and inherited lands in Fermanagh with a retreat in the islands of
Lough Erne which he considered impregnable. He retorted to Fitzwilliam's demand that he allow the queen's writ to run in his country: "
Your sheriff shall be welcome but let me know his eric [ie.honour price] that if my people should cut his head off I may levy it upon the country". His argument was that he'd already paid 300 beeves to Fitzwilliam to keep the sheriff out. Nevertheless, Captain Willis was made sheriff in command of 100 men, and disaffected members of the clan were encouraged to defy him. In the end, Maguire himself drove the sheriff and his men into a church and besieged them there in 1590; Tyrone intervened and saved the besieged force from death, and then Fitzwilliam invaded the country, proclaimed Maguire a traitor and took
Enniskillen.
Encouraged by the
Catholic archbishop of
Armagh,
Edmund Magauran, but opposed by Tyrone, Maguire invaded
Connacht straight away and met with the army of Sir
Richard Bingham, president of the province, on mid-summer eve. The
battle of Sciath na Feart took place at
Tulsk, in a fog so dense that the sides only realised their proximity when their cavalries were almost upon one another. Bingham's men fled to their camp, and Maguire pursued but was repulsed and in his turn pursued. The Irish lost Magauran; the English lost
William Clifford. Maguire retired into his country with considerable spoil.
At the end of 1593, Maguire was wounded in an attempt to prevent Sir
Henry Bagnal and Tyrone from crossing the Erne. In June of the following year he besieged Enniskillen with
Hugh Roe O'Donnell,
Lord of Tyrconnell. Bingham sought to relieve the garrison, but Maguire intercepted him at the
Arney river and defeated him in the
Battle of the Biscuits (
Beal atha na mBriosgaidh). In the following year he devastated
Cavan and was again proclaimed a traitor by the English.
Nine Years War
During the
Nine Years War (Ireland) (1595–1603), Maguire participated in the
Battle of Clontibret in 1595, a significant early defeat for the English, and commanded the cavalry at
Mullaghbrack in 1596. He sent in his submission to the government later in the year. In 1598 he held a command at the
Battle of the Yellow Ford, at which Bagnal was slain and the English army annihilated. In 1599 he helped raid
Thomond and took
Inchiquin castle. In early 1600 he commanded Tyrone's cavalry in the
Leinster and
Munster campaigns. On
18 February he was intercepted within a mile of Cork by Sir
Warham St Leger. Maguire slew his opponent, but died within a few hours of the encounter from wounds he'd received; his foster father, his priest and all the commanders of his regiment were also killed.
Maguire's death was a blow to the rebel cause. He had educated and advanced notions of cavalry warfare; so too did St Leger, and their meeting was as much one of minds as of force.
Legacy
Maguire married the daughter of Tyrone, but was succeeded by his younger brother, Cuchonnacht, who departed Ireland for the continent with Tyrone during the
Flight of the Earls in 1607, dying at Genoa in August 1608. Almost all of Fermanagh was confiscated by the crown after this and planted, largely by Scots settlers and
border reivers (see
Plantation of Ulster).
Maguire's bard, O'Hussey, composed a stark and chilling ode upon his patron's death. The
Annals of the Four Masters (c. 1630) eulogised him: "
He was the bulwark of valour and prowess, the shield of protection and shelter, the tower of support and defence, and the pillar of the hospitality and achievements of the Oirghialla and of almost all the Irish of his time".
Further Information
Get more info on 'Hugh Maguire'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://hugh_maguire.totallyexplained.com">Hugh Maguire Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
