The Desmond Rebellion in Munster (1579-1583) was a bloody affair but just how bloody will be described for the first time by a UCC history lecturer in a one-day conference next Saturday.
Following extensive research in Britain and elsewhere, Mr David Edwards says it is now possible to quantify the loss of life in that conflict with some accuracy. The number of people who died, he adds, was between 40,000 and 50,000. Given that the population of Ireland was a lot less than a million at the time, in modern parlance we would be referring to a holocaust.
A scorched-earth policy was adopted by both sides, leading to widespread famine. Contemporary accounts suggest the Munster countryside was almost denuded of people when it was over.
The conference, "Age of Massacres: Violent Death in Ireland c. 1547-1650", is being run jointly by UCC and NUI Maynooth.
If you want to hear more about what was possibly the most awful century in Irish history, from the death of Henry VIII in 1547 to the advent of Cromwell in 1649, Collins Barracks in Dublin at 10 a.m. is the place and time.
Mr Edwards adds that while soldiers' deaths were recorded, it was not regarded as necessary to record the deaths of the peasantry. Frequently, he came across references which spoke of "an unknown number of churls" losing their lives.