Uprising

by C R Dempsey

  Seamus bowed.

  “Thank you for entrusting me with this. I will return with Hugh Boye as soon as it is safe to do so.”

  “The O’Donnells, the northern Confederation, indeed Ireland no less, needs you to succeed.”

  “I bare this burden for the glory of the O’Donnell and the good of Ireland,” and Seamus bowed and left, inwardly unmoved by such histrionics.

  Seamus secretly hoped that being the O’Donnell had not gone to Red Hugh’s head.

  * * *

  Following Eoghan McToole O’Gallagher through the network of corridors and out into the field behind the castle, Seamus noticed a ragbag of men in a disjointed line looking for their new leader. He was delighted to find Sean O’Toole amongst them. However, another familiar face awaited Seamus.

  “I’m not taking him! How are we supposed to remain inconspicuous with a man who has a bag on his head?”

  “Sorry, Red Hugh thought you might object. But he knows Leinster better than anyone. Besides, Red Hugh has done a deal to support Brian Óg O’Rourke, and part of it is to take some of his men. But you never know, he might die on the way,” replied Eoghan McToole.

  Seamus scowled, for he knew he was stuck with him.

  He inspected the men and did little to disguise how unimpressed he was with them. It certainly was not like the days when he served the Fitzgeralds, but they were long behind him. But he had to make do.

  * * *

  The next day, the O’Donnell army set off for Connacht. Again, it was a united enterprise comprising the O’Donnells and their supporters from Ulster, Connacht and Leinster. Their mission was to defeat whatever opposition they came across and steal all the cows and any transportable victuals they could lay their hands on. Unbeknown to Seamus, Red Hugh invited Hugh Maguire to join him in the raid. Maguire could not resist the offer of potential loot, and he also had mercenaries and soldiers that required paying. He took some of his best men away from the siege of Enniskillen, leaving the conduct of the blockade to Cormac MacBaron. Eunan O’Keenan Maguire would be in their ranks.

  * * *

  Shea Óg proved useful during the raid at first, as his knowledge of the land was extensive. However, his true talent for cruelty and greed was wasted on the local population. Not only did Red Hugh wish to dispossess the most prominent landowners who supported the Crown, he also wanted to invoke the local population’s sympathies. Impartiality was therefore required, something which Shea Óg lacked. As Seamus reprimanded him and tried to constrain his actions, their already frayed relationship collapsed.

  Red Hugh was about to penetrate deeper into Connacht when he called a halt to the advance. They directed the herds of captured cattle to Tirconnell and word spread that he was waiting for Hugh Maguire. The rain pelted down, and the day became increasingly darker. Seamus summoned Shea Óg for advice, where he was directed to a hill to survey the land overlooking Breifne. He gave Shea Óg the slip, for he did not want him to follow him and learn what he was planning. He returned to his unit and then issued his orders. As they climbed the hill, visibility steadily worsened. Seamus and his men were on high alert, exercising caution with every tread.

  * * *

  Maguire summoned Eunan to his tent, along with other senior Maguire men. He told them to rally their men for a raid on Connacht. The Maguire’s financial and victual needs became more pressing since the siege had caused considerable disruption to food production and the roaming of the cattle herd in Fermanagh. Also, Red Hugh did not supply his redshanks for free.

  Eunan relished the opportunity to forge his men in battle, for there was only so much training that time, weather, morale and insufficient supply of weaponry would permit. Cattle rustling would be an easy and familiar introduction to the art of war for those farm boys who needed the experience.

  The men of Hugh Maguire marched south in high spirits, eager for the successes of Red Hugh to rub off on them. Neither fog nor rain could deflate their spirits. Maguire ordered Eunan to climb a hill on the flank to scout for the English and the O’Donnell. They did so with a spring in every boggy step.

  * * *

  Eunan’s men reached the top of the hill amidst a blanket of dreary fog. They walked to each visually impaired vantage point on the hill but could not lay sight to the land beneath. His men rested and laid their weapons on the ground, searching their pockets for stale bread stolen from an unlucky farmer in Breifne, whom they declared to be ‘a whore of the Crown’. The man was spared his life, but only after his livelihood had been stripped from him.

  Eunan sat in the centre of his men, proud of the marauding beasts they had become, their tentacles spreading across the land. They had dispensed the justice of the Maguire and the O’Donnell to those waverers and traitors that stood in their path. They had stripped the unworthy of their ill-gotten gains obtained by siding with the English or standing idly by whilst the English crushed their fellow Irishmen. Those same ill-gotten gains were then redirected northwards where they could be put to work for the cause of the rebellion. Sure, some of their victims were innocent, but the clans were innocent and English justice was imposed on them, regardless. Eunan was the leader of men; the leader of men with a purpose. Every action they took was for the Maguire, the rebellion and the impending arrival of the Spanish king’s men.

  The sound of voices and the clinking of armour alerted Eunan that a body of men approached through the fog. He immediately ordered his men to pick up their weapons and prepare to defend themselves.

  “To whom do you serve?” Eunan shouted at them.

  Seamus did not recognise Eunan’s men, for their shambolic assortment of chain mail, arms, and armour did not reveal them to a force of professional standing. Still, they could have been a collection of local farmers who had dug up what arms they could to defend their homestead. Usually, Seamus would merely order his men to charge, and such a ramshackle force would dispense anything of weight and run like rabbits to their burrows. But he had no wish to risk injury with such thick fog and treacherous ground underfoot. He barked instead.

  “I am here on the business of Red Hugh O’Donnell. If you are friends, make yourselves known. If you are foe, take this opportunity to run. We have buried enough of our enemies this day. The O’Donnell wishes no harm to the gentlefolk of Ireland but desires them free. His enemies, however, can rest eternally in this bog.”

  Eunan did not recognise his voice, for he considered Seamus to be in some other faraway place.

  “We are the men of the Maguire, and we have come to join the raid of the O’Donnell. Let us join forces so I can send word back to my master about the location of the O’Donnell so he can co-ordinate.”

  Seamus considered the proposal and decided this could be an opportunity to ditch most of his men and set off on his mission to Wicklow.

  “Stop your men where they are, and we will come and join you.”

  The two groups of men joined, and they embraced and exchanged stories about how they got there and the lands of Connacht that lay open before them. Eunan searched for the O’Donnell commander, who was not leading his men. The soldiers opened their ranks, and there before him stood…

  “Seamus!” Eunan growled, and his body became rigid.

  He raised his axe.

  Óisin, who stood beside him, threw his arm across Eunan’s axe. Even he had kept a sense that they should not be engaging with the forces of their allies, especially if those forces could easily carve them up into little pieces.

  “Eunan,” said Seamus, almost monotone. “I see you have sought to make something of the life I saved. I see the anger still burns in you. There are plenty of foes for you to throw your little axes at rather than avenge imaginary grudges against me.”

  “Imaginary? YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!” Eunan raised his axe and, in a blind fury, ran towards Seamus.

  Óisin saw the snarls on the men’s faces from the north and knew that if Eunan reached Seamus, they would all die. Eunan tripped and fell face down in the mud. Óisin re
tracted his foot then went to cover up his treachery by helping Eunan up, but he refused the hand of help.

  “Your friend has more sense than you,” said Seamus. “Come back to me when you have the guts to admit you’re a MacSheehy. Then we can talk or clash axes. I’ll leave the choice to you.”

  Seamus walked away. He saw the humiliation of Eunan’s face, a reminder of the fragility of his ego. Eunan was losing his men. Whatever of his many faults, he was still his only living relative, the last in a line of MacSheehy Galloglass. Everyone had old dreams and myths running through their heads and driving them towards the battlefield. Seamus’s tale was that the MacSheehy Galloglass would rise again and return to their lands of Munster. Everything would be like it was in the days before the Desmond rebellions and the endless spiralling feuds between the MacSheehys and the Munster MacSweeneys. Sean O’Rourke stepped out of the ranks, and Seamus noticed the lust for blood and revenge in his eyes. He saw an opportunity.

  As he walked over to Eunan, he extended his hand and helped him to his feet.

  “Get up, you are a chieftain of the Maguire, and we are allies.”

  Eunan could barely lift his head, and he wiped the blade of his axe in his trousers. Seamus noticed the men from both sides smirking at Eunan in front of his face.

  “Whatever grudge you hold against me, we should settle now. You want to fight and kill me? I am an agent of the O’Donnell, a commander of men, and bestowed with a mission. By Brehon law, you would owe my master a debt if you kill me - a debt so large, you could never repay. You would also sully your master’s reputation with mine. My death would be the only consolation you would have as a broke and humiliated outcast roaming Ireland. Therefore, it would be better for both of us if you lay slain on the ground.

  “However, that is a proposition you may not be agreeable with. So I propose a solution: I will elect a champion to fight in my place. If you kill him, our issues are resolved. If he kills you, then I shall mourn for the death of the last of my kin. I will give you one of my very best men so that you will know if you kill him, you will have done damage to me. Let all of you who stand here and watch that this fight witness the resolving of our issues. I nominate as my champion, Sean O’Rourke.”

  Eunan cocked his head.

  “A champion!?”

  He looked at the faces of his men and knew that if they were ever to respect him again, he had to accept the challenge. Sean strode out of the ranks, drooling at the prospect of gaining revenge for his father’s maiming and family’s humiliation. Seamus stepped back to adjudicate the fight.

  “I assume we follow the Galloglass way and fight with axes?”

  “We can fight any way you want, but it’ll end up with me splitting his head open,” exclaimed Sean.

  “Hack the little bastard to bits,” screamed his father.

  Eunan took his axe and looked at Óisin for reassurance. Óisin nodded back.

  “Then let us begin! To the death!” cried Seamus before melting back amongst his men.

  Sean raised his axe. The rain pelted off the freshly sharpened blade. His grip was firm and his gaze steady.

  “Come on then. Raise your axe!”

  Eunan gripped the shaft of his axe and psyched himself up for battle. He gripped the ground with his feet, as he was unsure how he fell in front of Seamus. It was slippery underfoot, but he had fought in a bog before, standard fare for a trainee Galloglass.

  “Quit praying for your Mammy and come on,” shouted Sean.

  Eunan charged like a bull. Sean skipped aside like a matador. Eunan rolled around in the mud like a pig ripe for slaughter.

  Seamus tapped Sean O’Toole on the shoulder.

  “Gather the men. Our mission awaits.”

  “Are you going to leave your only living kin to die in the mud?” exclaimed Sean O’Toole.

  “If we stay, the O’Donnell may die in the mud, too. The boy has to learn. If he lives, he will be wiser for it. The characters of men are forged in the fires of war or the mud of a bog. Let us go, or you can stay and be the champion for him.”

  Sean O’Toole directed the men down the opposite slope of the hill.

  Sean O’Rourke raised his axe above his head to go in for the kill. Eunan tried to push himself back in the slippery mud but only spend energy and panicked. An idea flashed into his mind.

  “What would Seamus do?”

  He reached for his axe and thrust it up from the mud. The spray blinded Sean and allowed Eunan a moment’s respite to get back to his feet.

  “Don’t let him up! Kill him!” screamed Shea Óg.

  Óisin’s heart warmed when he estimated they were cheap deaths under Brehon law as per Seamus’s previous threats.

  Sean was a hulk of a man, with excellent technique and a steady balance on his feet. He was, however, impatient and went for the knock-out blow each time instead of waiting for an opportunity to present itself. He swung for Eunan again, who by now found his feet. Eunan parried Sean’s blows, inviting him forward, retreating slowly and feeling the ground as he did so. Sean jabbed and swung, advancing. The men surrounding the fight bellowed their support for their favoured side and expanded the circle as Eunan retreated. Eunan watched Sean’s feet, along with his swinging axe.

  “Finish him!” cried Shea Óg, and Sean thrust forward.

  As he did so, he placed his foot in a hole in the bog that Eunan had carefully avoided. Eunan had not wasted his time as the mud rolling pig. Sean collapsed, his axe fell to the ground, and Eunan’s axe fell on him with such force Sean could merely whimper until a second blow put him out of his misery. Eunan raised his hands in triumph and wiped the blood and mud from his face. He looked around for Seamus so he could lord over him.

  “He is gone,” said Óisin as he saw that victory rapidly deflated from Eunan’s face.

  Indeed, Seamus was now a mile or two across the bogs toward Wicklow. The rest of his men disappeared to link back up with the O’Donnells. Meanwhile, Shea Óg and a couple of O’Rourkes made good their escape in the post-victory commotion and departed back to Breifne.

  25

  Return to Wicklow

  Every man who could bear arms and would take the Queen’s shilling was sent to Connacht or the northern Pale border, leaving Ulster to fend off the strongly rumoured rebel invasion. Red Hugh and his spies provided Seamus with the perfect cover to slip into Wicklow. He hoped it would be this easy on the way back and hoped he would not die in a hangman’s noose. With such a stream of people on Ireland’s dirt roads, nobody noticed a couple of strangers with a place to go. He soon found himself in the foothills of the Wicklow mountains, and Fiach’s agents brought him to the rebel camp. Once there, Seamus sent Sean O’Toole to find out what happened since they had departed. Seamus did not have to wait long for news.

  Fiach looked pained when Seamus went to see him in his tent. He lifted his head from his hands as he sat in the makeshift wooden chair of the O’Byrne.

  “I am so glad you are back, my friend. You may have brought me few reinforcements, but at least you brought some.”

  “Where is my greeting? Why am I not bowled off my feet with the great bear hug I crossed Ireland to receive?”

  “I would be a hypocrite to hug you and then tell you that my underlings wasted the lives of your men.”

  “Tell me what happened?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “I have been in the field for weeks.”

  “Walter Reagh proved to be as uncontrollable, but as charming as ever. Your men craved action and soon fell under his spell. Walter was..”

  “Was?”

  “Was… Walter was always determined to retake the lands of his forefathers.”

  “Every Irish lord is the prisoner of his past, and the past gives birth to many a foolish thought.”

  “Indeed. We are all trapped in a loop of imagined past glories and spend our lives trying to live up to them. Anyway, Brian O’Byrne, a well-known turncoat, came under the vengeful spotlight of Walter
Reagh. Walter gathered his men, including your own, and went to take out his vengeance. His men were no match for the O’Byrne castle walls, but Brian’s ego was weak, and he fell for Walter Reagh’s goading and came out to fight him in single combat. As dexterous a swordsman as he is, Walter Reagh was no match for Brian, a once valiant fighter for the rebellion until the Crown bought him off. Walter was wounded and dragged to the hills. He was placed in a cave for safekeeping while some men came back to fetch us. In the meantime, Brian alerted the garrison of the Pale, and they took to the mountains to find Walter Reagh. I raised our men to form a rescue party, and the survivors of the raid led us back towards the cave. We kept running into English patrols, who were increasingly suspicious that they were close to Walter Reagh.

  “Our men had left Walter in the capable hands of a young physician charged with ensuring he could travel. Every day the physician gathered herbs so he could apply fresh medicine to Walter’s wounds. But one day he was caught by the English patrols. By fair means or foul, they persuaded him to betray his patient. Walter was captured and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. A swift trial followed, and he was found guilty of treason, hung, drawn and quartered. His head was placed on a spike outside the castle for all to see.”

  Seamus hesitated as Fiach’s hand juddered.

  “I am sorry for your loss. Walter Reagh would have made a good rebel if he was capable of any control. But you realise that many heads of your family will decorate the spikes of Dublin Castle, maybe even your own before we see any progress.”

  “You have a hard heart Seamus MacSheehy, a perceptive brain for war and its surrounding horrors and a sharp tongue to administer advice. If ever I needed counsel, I would wish for you.”

  “My advice will always be available for as long as I am around. However, we must still get down to business, even in a time of mourning. Where is Hugh Boye, and how has he been?”