They might have covered around twenty miles in a six- to eight-hour push, putting them within range of today’s Roundwood, Annamoe, Ashford, with a further ten miles to go to Glenmalure. This would assume that they were fit, knew where they were going in the dark and made no exhausting diversions. But they may well have been further back – towards Enniskerry. Red Hugh’s white-skinned, slender feet, a throighthe toinngheala tanaidhe, were torn by the furze and the briars and the ruggedness of the mountain. His light shoes were shredded. They went into a dense wood to rest until dawn, according to the ‘Life’.
In the morning, O’Donnell could not continue. Could not, or would not? As a family historian, Ó Cléirigh would never raise such a scruple. The rest of the party went on successfully to Glenmalure, and we know that the Crown lost several hostages in the escape. But Red Hugh, always impulsive, was under the impression that rescue was closer to hand than Glenmalure. Left in the woods with a small party, he sent for help to Phelim O’Toole of Castlekevin, near Annamoe.
The O’Tooles had had their own hostages in the tender care of the Crown. Phelim O’Toole is thought to have visited Red Hugh in prison where they promised to help each other should an occasion ever arise. Significantly, Phelim’s sister, Róis, was married to O’Byrne, the rebel chieftain of Glenmalure. According to one account, she was visiting her brother in Annamoe as the crisis developed.
The O’Tooles were traditional rulers of Kildare and the Wicklow area, but their power would not survive the coming Nine Years’ War, of which Red Hugh was a sharp presentiment.
BETRAYAL
He should have kept on going, feet or no feet. O’Toole failed him, and handed him back to the Castle authorities. There were circumstances, of course. Phelim’s arm was twisted by his family and by associates with Crown connections. Red Hugh’s presence in the area had immediately become known to spies. Tracker-dogs were already on his trail, cona luirg for a fhoillecht. Whether he got away with the connivance of the O’Tooles or was recaptured in their company, they would have been hopelessly compromised. So, they handed him over. A warrant was issued by the lord deputy for the arrest of Hugh Roe O’Donnell at Castlekevin. The date was 25 January 1591. While this act of betrayal could easily be seen as a Judas-reflex, it has not attracted the hate mail of history. We understand the nature of that kiss too well.
There is another reason why the O’Tooles of Castlekevin have never quite been accused of treachery. Phelim’s sister, Róis, at home on a visit, is said to have proposed that the fugitive be held overnight, as if awaiting arrest. Meanwhile, her husband, Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne, would raid the castle and carry Red Hugh away to Glenmalure before the soldiers arrived. O’Byrne, the outlaw, had nothing further to lose by enraging the English, while the O’Tooles could claim innocence of treachery to either side. If ever a plan deserved to succeed, that one did. The plot, stranger than fiction, was reported by Philip O’Sullivan, writing in Spain a generation later. According to him, it rained so heavily during the night that the rivers flooded and Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne could not get out of Glenmalure to raid Castlekevin before the English arrived. O’Sullivan, however, was an enthusiastic embellisher.
MANACLES
So, the rehearsal was over and O’Donnell was back in prison – in irons, this time. The fact that wiser companions had escaped must have been an unbearable echo of Rathmullan. Ó Cléirigh resorts to stylised rhetoric to convey the grief of the Gaels: ‘There came a great gloom over the Irish … and the hearts of their heroes were weakened on hearing that news. There were many princesses and great ladies and beautiful, white-breasted maidens grieving and lamenting on his behalf.’
However, it was inevitable that O’Donnell would escape a second time from Dublin Castle, as if he had the appointment with destiny that storytelling demands. It would happen, not for narrative reasons, but because his allies were tirelessly plotting his escape, bombarding Crown officials with appeals and bribes. His installation as chief of the O’Donnells was important in the regional strategy of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone. With the masterful O’Neill pulling strings, Red Hugh was going to get out, one way or the other. Whether he broke out, or was bought out, was the only question.
SECOND ESCAPE
Breakout occurred a year later, on 24 December, when the guards were predictably drunk – a reversal of the roles at Rathmullan. The famous event developed a sense of nativity, or rebirth, as a result of the date. However, Christmas Eve 1591 became 5 January 1592, when the Gregorian calendar kicked in (wiping a week and a half off human existence, according to public opinion); so the annual re-enactment takes place on the eve of the Epiphany, with a night-walk from Dublin Castle to Glenmalure. This used to include kicking the Castle Gate at midnight before setting off on the journey – until one walker kicked the gate so hard that he broke his ankle and had to be carried home.
Art O’Neill
Art and Henry were the sons of Shane O’Neill, who had killed Hugh O’Neill’s father in 1558 in pursuit of the title. Shane had also insulted Red Hugh’s people by capturing a prominent O’Donnell and taking his wife for a mistress. Art O’Neill was an illegitimate son of this bizarre relationship. Henry O’Neill was one of only two legitimate sons from Shane’s ten offspring by various women. Collectively known as the Mac Shanes, they had a strong claim on the O’Neill title, a claim aggressively pursued against Hugh O’Neill.
The annual night-march is not called after Red Hugh. It is known as ‘The Art O’Neill Walk’. Art and his older brother, Henry, also escaped that night. Although it is well known that Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, engineered the escape, it was not on account of these particular kinsmen, who were enemies of his. Contrary to the romantic impression of Art and Henry as princely youths, they were grown men, much older than Red Hugh. They had been imprisoned as pledges in Dublin Castle since 1585.
This time, the prisoners were in the formidable black tower, which is now the Garda Museum. With walls up to fifteen feet thick, it was far more secure than the prison block of the previous year. Surrounded at that time by a loop of the River Poddle, the tower formed the southeast corner of the Castle walls.3
The hostages were bound in iron fetters, which they managed to remove: gattaid i ngeimhle díobh, Ó Cléirigh says, as if they had taken off their shoes. Another account puts a noisy file in the hands of Red Hugh; it was a good thing the guards were drunk. Apparently the irons were inspected regularly for tampering, so there was only a single chance.
After the first escape, the lord deputy had replaced the prison superintendent with an elderly man called Maplesdene who is thought to have been seriously ill. This unfortunate man died less than forty-eight hours after the breakout. We don’t know the circumstances, but a second-in-command was locked up ‘with good store of irons’. Informed opinion suspects Sir William Fitzwilliam, the lord deputy, to have been the chief recipient of bribes, with Maplesdene as his pawn.
It was a foul winter’s night. The prisoners lowered themselves down through a shaft in the walls of the tower. The Irish fiailteach is always translated as ‘privy’, and this is the word still used, even in modern guidebooks to Dublin Castle. There is no polite word for such a loathsome shaft, bearing in mind that it would not have been accessible if it had seemed a possible means of escape. There are hints, though, that it had been cleaned prior to the breakout. It is not hard to imagine what that might involve; the exit below was probably backed up and had to be cleared at intervals.
Ó Cléirigh mentions a rope again, without detail, but it is usually described as lengths of fabric knotted together. This is an interpretation of the ‘sarsnet’ or silk referred to in various references as material for making a line.4
Art O’Neill, who had been a long time in prison, was corpulent and thick-thighed – collnach remhairshliastach, in the blunt words of Ó Cléirigh. Presumably they left him until last, in case he got wedged in the shaft, or a knot slipped under his weight. Art is said to have been struck by a falling stone as
he descended.
The sewer of Dublin Castle might well be thought of as the anal canal of imperialism. The moat was formed by the River Poddle, which cannot have been particularly wholesome either. They crossed it, climbed the opposite bank and found their guide. No spare clothing or footwear. The prisoners had left their heavy mantles in the tower. O’Donnell might have known better after his previous attempt. Either he was impulsive to the point of calamity (aspects of his later career back that up), or he believed the guide would have whatever was needed. Perhaps the shaft was so tight that they had to leave the garments behind, or maybe they could not have crossed the moat wearing heavy woollen cloaks.
Again, a pre-arranged escape, a conspiracy, with practical details poorly handled. Ó Cléirigh does not identify the reception party, but O’Sullivan’s account has a young man called Edward Eustace involved. Four horses had been kept ready by Eustace for three nights, but friends had borrowed them that evening without permission. This man was Edward Fitzeustace, a young relative of the Viscount of Baltinglass who was the exiled leader of a rebellion with Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne. Even if Edward was involved in the plan, there is no suggestion that he accompanied the fugitives on foot when the horses disappeared. And yet, it can only be the mention of his name (by O’Sullivan only), combined with the location of Fitzeustace territory to the west of Glenmalure, that has led to the modern belief that the prisoners fled in that direction.
The ‘Life’ simply tells us that they crossed the slopes of Slieve Rua, ‘where Red Hugh had come on his first escape’. Sadly, the faithful guide does not merit identification. One thing is certain, though: east or west, he must have been a Wicklow mountain expert. This makes him almost certainly one of Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne’s people. We know from contemporary reports that the Crown had spies in Glenmalure, while the rebels had their men in Dublin. The man who attended the prisoners and became their guide must have been one of those. The lord deputy pointed later to such a servant as the guide.
Fact or Fiction
Ó Cléirigh, in the ‘Life’, clearly indicates a single guide – a trusty servant who had visited or attended them in the Castle and who ‘met them face to face when it was necessary to be their guide’. Again, Ó Cléirigh, at firsthand, must have been better informed, and the graphic O’Sullivan must be less reliable. He gets the date of this second escape completely wrong, for example, setting it a few days after the first, instead of a year later. His errors and assumptions have had far-reaching effects on the story.
The Rev. Paul Walsh, in his modern commentary, accepts that there were two guides, one of them Edward Eustace, and that the escape route therefore went west through Fitzeustace territory – this despite the fact that the ‘Life’, which he was editing, says no such thing.
It was early in the night, the city gates not yet closed. They made their way through thronged streets and fled the city without being noticed. The fact that a group of men, having crawled through a toilet and waded through a sewer, roused no attention in the city implies that Dublin must have been hosting stag parties longer than we think.
Somewhere en route, they lost Henry O’Neill. It has been hinted that he may have separated from them deliberately, fearing a conspiracy against him. Henry is known to have made his way successfully home to Ulster, a very impressive feat given the hue and cry that had been raised. He was immediately locked up for the duration of the Nine Years’ War by his kinsman, Hugh O’Neill, who liked to keep enemies under his own control, rather than in Dublin Castle where they might be used against him.
It did not pass without notice that Hugh O’Neill would have liked Art out of the way also. There were those who thought that Art had signed his own death warrant when he headed towards Glenmalure. No doubt they saw the ‘Life’, when it appeared, as a whitewash. The internecine politics of Gaelic Ireland were devious.
Night March
The annual commemoration walk takes a route from Dublin Castle to Terenure, along the River Dodder to the Stone Cross and on to the Liffey at Ballysmuttan Bridge; on then past Sorrel Hill and Black Hill, over Billy Byrne’s Gap to Glenbride; across the King’s River and up Glenreemore on difficult ground to Art’s Cross, past the Three Lakes on the plateau and down Table Track into Glenmalure. This route involves about twenty miles of road-walking, followed by nearly as much again across the hills. First put together by a group called Na Fánaithe, in 1952, the route has been chosen by the organisers as simply the safest modern one between two points, using mountain roads as far as possible. The route presumes entry into Glenmalure via the high western end of the narrow valley. It is based on assumptions that may be traced back to the mention of Edward Eustace and the missing horses.
HYPOTHERMIA
Whichever direction they took, the fugitives were in trouble. The winter conditions, the darkness, the need for speed, their inadequate clothes and footwear – all induced the condition known today as exposure, or hypothermia: when the core-temperature of the body drops to a dangerous level, resulting in confusion and eventual collapse. Wet clothing, wind chill, fatigue and lack of high-energy food are the causes. A simple drop of 4°C in the core temperature causes disorientation; a drop of 7°C and the casualty falls into a coma; a loss of 10°C can be fatal. Simple exposure accounts for many mountain disasters. If the condition is not treated, it will kill. In one sense, mountains are utterly predictable: they will punish presumption. O’Donnell might have known what to expect, given his own previous fiasco and Art’s physical condition.
As soon as they reached the winter foothills, the Ulstermen left politics behind and stumbled into the universal story of wilderness and escape. Their trials have occurred over and over throughout the world and will continue to afflict refugees, fugitives, hunters, traders and, of course, mountaineers. In the second half of the twentieth century, similar conditions have beset Tibetans fleeing through the mountains from Chinese rule. The Chinese imposed conditions in Tibet which were similar to those in Elizabethan Ireland.
‘The night came on with drizzle and a downpour of rain and slippery snow…’ Gebidh an adhaigh for snidhe agus ferthain …. Art O’Neill collapsed. Red Hugh and the guide hitched his arms across their shoulders and dragged the exhausted man along between them, ‘over the pass of the mountain-plateau’. This is unlikely. On rough terrain over any great distance, they would all have collapsed. The text is doing its duty by O’Donnell, reflecting him as a high-born hero of noble instinct. What else would be expected of a budding chief, or indeed of the tribal historian?
Victims of exposure become so confused that they can appear to be drunk, stumbling along, acting and speaking irrationally. Strength may surge and decline in erratic bursts. Immediate rest and re-warming is the only treatment. An inexperienced leader will often press on rather than look for shelter where the victim can be warmed between the bodies of his companions. The driving force is the single-minded need to reach a destination. Stronger members of the group may also be succumbing to exposure, their judgement eroded by rain and wind, and their decisions obstinate. Meanwhile, the body is protecting its core temperature by shutting off circulation to the extremities: hands and toes, ears, nose, cheeks. The initial pain of freezing fingers and toes – the warning system – has switched off, and the suffering has actually decreased. Frostbite does not require alpine or Himalayan conditions. With poor circulation, it can occur at a few degrees below zero, if the feet or hands are cold and wet for a long period.
Eventually the fugitives were forced to a halt; they could not drag Art any further. They took shelter under a high cliff-edge, allbhruaich iomaird, on the hillside. The guide continued on to Glenmalure in search of help. He must have been O’Byrne’s man, because he knew the way forward on the mountain. He had already walked twenty-five miles or more, in winter, from Dublin Castle and might have had ten miles still to travel to Ballinacor, the home of O’Byrne. Then he had to return that distance with the rescue party, and back again afterwards to Glenmalure with the casua
lty. He was to traverse in and out of the valley three times on difficult terrain.
Whoever the man was, it was a terrible moment for him as he left his charges behind and forged ahead into the weather. Although existence had narrowed down to survival, he carried the symbolic force of their escape and its outcome. There is a powerful bond of responsibility on the strongest member of an afflicted group forced to go on alone. If he does not find help, if he returns too late, if he loses the way, if the weather worsens, there is no one but him to bear the consequence. A kind of guilty terror strikes the heart and grips it with the sense of what may happen in his absence. Everything depends on him.
The outcome has always fascinated hill-walkers and mountaineers, who have experienced the harshness of the landscape. The Wicklow hills are low and rounded, with a temperate climate, but winter can be vicious in a peculiarly local way. A summer hill becomes a winter mountain. On a bad night of biting winds and driving rain, when you have chosen to be out and gone too far to retreat, you strain into the weather, or tack across it on boggy slopes, while freezing rain stings the eyes and runs into the mouth and nostrils with every breath. There is a lack of definition in the landscape that causes confusion and loss of confidence – impossible to tell whether the ground ahead is rising or falling. Instinct is amputated. There can be nothing random involved, or you will go disastrously astray. You navigate by map and compass, with a head-torch. All of a sudden, a homely landscape has switched from comfort to conflict and the hostile element is not only the weather, but also the very ground itself. It is this power to change that fascinates.
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