All chieftains great and small – An Irishman’s Diary about Hugh O’Neill (and some of his followers)

The unprecedented build-up on this island of successful international football managers called O’Neill is timely, given the year that’s in it. So is the fact that both men will lead migrations of Irish people to mainland Europe next month.

For among the major anniversaries of summer will be the quatercentenary of the most famously illustrious of all O’Neills – the “Great” one, aka Hugh, who died at Rome in July 1616.

He had sailed from Lough Swilly nine years before, as his enemies closed in. And the last decade of his life seems to have been a rather sad one, in which he gradually abandoned all hope of a Spanish-aided return to Ireland and former glories.

Even so, the Annals of the Four Masters managed a positive spin on God’s choice (as they saw it) of O’Neill’s last resting place. As for the departed’s life, they spared no compliment.

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He was praised as “a powerful, mighty lord, endowed with wisdom, subtlety and profundity of mind and intellect; a warlike, valorous, predatory, enterprising lord [...]; a pious and charitable lord, mild and gentle with his friends, fierce and stern towards his enemies...” And so on.

It’s no coincidence that the Four Masters’ epic review of Irish history, having started with the biblical flood, ended in 1616, with O’Neill’s passing. The chief author, Micheál Ó Cléirigh, had been part of a wave of migrants that followed the chieftain into exile, and the old man’s death confirmed the closing of an era that had been doomed since the Battle of Kinsale.

Amid general soul-searching in Gaelic Ireland, 1616 also saw the start of a literary controversy known as the Contention of the Bards. This was a bit like a modern poetry slam, or rapping contest, but in very slow motion – it went on for several years.

Interestingly, in light of modern cross-border politics (not to mention the impending football tournament in France), it was a contest to decide whether the northern half of Ireland was superior to the southern, or vice versa.

But the argument was only peripherally concerned with the politics of its time. It was more rooted in ancient history, and with determining which branch of Irish lineage was nobler.

In the context of the fast-changing European politics that Hugh O’Neill had skilfully negotiated as long as he could, the bards of 1616 were bald men fighting over a comb.

This year’s anniversary will no doubt provoke renewed contention, bardic or otherwise. In fact the debate has already started across the Atlantic, where Boston College had a day-long seminar on “O’Neill at 400” back in February.

But among events to come is one in Rome next month, where the Irish Embassy and the British School will jointly host a two-day retrospective on O’Neill’s life.

I am sure too that somebody somewhere is planning a revival of the late Brian Friel's under-appreciated play about the subject, Making History; although wherever that happens could hardly surpass the setting in which I saw it performed on an earlier 400th anniversary, of the Flight of the Earls, in 2007.

Then, with Denis Conway as chief protagonist, it was presented open-air on the hill in Dungannon from which the O’Neills (and The O’Neill) used to survey their kingdom. The drama was heightened by the knowledge that for four centuries after Kinsale, the site had been militarily occupied or otherwise off-limits to most locals, so that those attending the play were among the first civilians to stand on it since the deposed clan itself.

But leaving O’Neill to the summer schools, for now, I should mention a related event that starts in another part of Ulster tonight. This one is inspired by the aforementioned Micheál Ó Cléirigh, of the Fab Four, 17th-century historian style, who now has an annual “school” in his honour, albeit at a slightly awkward place in the calendar.

As its website (mocleirigh.ie) explains, the event is “... not a summer school, not a winter school, more a gathering”.

In any case, it gathers again this evening, in his native Rossnowlagh. And although the various quatercentenaries will lurk in the background, the organisers have bypassed them for this year’s theme. Instead, prompted by the desperate scenes now unfolding daily in the Mediterranean, the school’s 2016 title is “Refugees and Strangers”. The historical contributions will be mostly about “being Irish in Europe 1500-1800”. But bringing the message back home, and up to date, the weekend will also involve a panel discussion, on Saturday afternoon, about “Refugees Today”.