The Flight of the Earls represented the final collapse of the old Gaelic order in Ireland, leaving the way clear for the Plantation of Ulster and the consolidation of English rule.
In September 1607, Hugh O'Neill, second Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, first Earl of Tyrconnell, set sail with 90 relatives and associates from Rathmullan, a small fishing village on the shores of Lough Swilly in Co Donegal.
Originally planning to go to Spain, they were diverted to the French coast where they disembarked and made their way overland to Italy. Their departure from Ireland represented the final outworking of the defeat of the Gaelic aristocracy at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.
Six years after Kinsale, the principal remaining leaders of the Gaelic order decided to take refuge on the European continent. They never returned; both Rory O'Donnell and Hugh O'Neill died in Rome, the former in 1608, the latter in 1616. O'Neill's principal ally, Red Hugh O'Donnell, brother of Rory, had died in Spain in 1602.