Royalty in Kinsale? It just might become a reality. The seaside town which now prides itself on being a gourmet centre was centre-stage in 1601 when O'Donnell and O'Neill linked with the Spanish in an attempt to destroy English forces.
In the event, the Irish and Spanish were the ones who were routed. It was the end of the Irish order.
Kinsale Urban District Council is planning an elaborate commemoration to mark this profound event in Irish history. The Spanish king, Juan Carlos, has been invited to attend. He hasn't said Yes but he hasn't said No either.
The President, Mrs McAleese, has signalled that she will attend, and feelers have gone out to the British royal family to establish whether a senior member will make the journey to Cork to participate in what might be called a 400-year-old peace initiative.
It promises to be a marvellous occasion, and it could only be made better if royalty arrived. The feeling is that if the Spanish king agrees, Buckingham Palace might be inclined to follow suit.
Mr Hiram Morgan is a history lecturer at UCC, and adviser to the Kinsale project team. He has written Tyrone's Rebellion and has debunked some of the popular ideas about Hugh O'Neill.
Between 1594 and 1603 Elizabeth I and her court referred to the insurrection in Ireland as the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone. It was known here as the Nine Years War.
In modern peace-process style, there were interminable negotiations, but no compromise could be reached. Instead, O'Neill forged an alliance with the Spanish and, as the cliche goes, the rest is history. There was O'Donnell's historic march south, culminating in his rendezvous with O'Neill's forces west of Kinsale and the series of disasters which ended in the rout.
Mr Morgan has challenged some of the assumptions made popular in Sean O Faolain's book The Great O'Neill and Brian Friel's play Making History.
He writes that O'Neill was not brought up in England, as is popularly believed. He was reared on the borders of the Pale in Ireland. He was not a vacillating half-Englishman but an adept and manipulative character, fully conversant with the politics of "court, castle and country".
During the siege of Kinsale, some 6,000 English troops died of starvation and disease. Yet in the battle itself only a handful of English lives were lost while the retreating Irish forces lost 1,200 men.
Next year's 400th commemoration ceremonies will include historic reenactments. Perhaps the most exciting will be a march from Sligo to Kinsale by the FCA in the footsteps of O'Donnell. Special art works are being commissioned, and new translations of native histories of the period will be produced. Mr Morgan also has plans for an international winter school.