The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 83, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 10, 1916 Page: 3 of 4
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THE LAMPASAS DAILY LEADER
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A bit of historu about
Shane O’Neill, the great
Irish Chief who lived and
died fighting “Redshanks”
HEN'Elizabeth, queen and
virgin, ruled in England
and Shane O’Neill, hered-
itary chieftain, ruled in Ul-
ster, the Irish historical
arena presented the as-
pects of a Homeric con-
flict. On the one side the
chivalrous old Gaelic war-
riois, with their fighting
ranks interspersed with
bards and brehons, strug-
gling to save the landmarks of the na-
tive civilization. On the other hand
were the astute Tudor diplomatists
wvtk their deputies and sheriffs, striv-
ing to cast the imperial net about the
fair hill and wooded morasses of Ul-
ster. For both sides the times were
critical and each fought for its very
existence in Ireland. One defeat in
battle was always liable to throw the
native or the castle cause out of reck-
oning for a generation.
The appearance of Shane O'Neill in
history was in opposition to Mathew,
the son of the earl of Tyrone, whom
the government had nominated to rule
Ulster. In those days there were
castle chiefs just as in latter days
there were castle bishops. There was
‘'the queen’s O’Reilly” and the royal
candidate for the O’Neillship—the su-
preme of all Irish titles. Shane
claimed it on his merits as a free
mail of the ruling house and the clan
rallied round him. Upon the sacred
s^dme of his race at Tullyoge in the
County Tyrone (it is now an Orange
hamlet and the stone of inaugura-
tion . has been hammered into frag-
ments) Shane was solemnly declared
to bef; the O’Neill par excellence. The
O’Hagan, his brehon, read out his
clair^i and title, while the O’Kane, his
inaiHjurator, placed a white wand in
his i hand as the scepter of O’Neill-
la^d.
U'So firmly was Shane settled in pop-
ular support and military strength that
Sidney the deputy w«s unwilling to ad-
venture an attack. For the time Shane
was left to fortify his castles at Dufl-
gannon and Ardglass and to recruit his
clansmen. In the following year Sus-
sex was made deputy with directions
to restore Matfrew O’Neill and to com-
pel obedience from Shane ‘‘either by
fair~ means or foul.” Sussex had not
the troops to venture on an Ulster
campaign, which in those days was a
combination of forest and guerrilla
warfare. Ulster was England’s Mex-
ico. There wa3 a rivalry of chiefs
and English policy was to recognize
one against the other. Sussex endeav-
ored to rouse the O’Reilly and the
G*Donnell against O’Neill. Shane was
not unprepared He crushed O’Reilly
with the help of Scotch mercenaries
or “Redshanks,” as they were called
(doubtless they wore kilts and showed
raw, wind-bitten knees). O’Donnell
he carried off with his wife into cap-
tivity. The deputy had no course left
hut to essay a military adventure him-
self. The effect was disastrous. His
dispatch from the field is still extant
in the state pape-s and has a quality
of the frank and personal note not dis-
coverable in the ambiguous dispatches
of modern warfare.
“Never before,” wrote Sussex,
“durst Scot or Irish look an English-
man in the face in plain or wood, and
now Shane hath with 120 horses, and
a few Scots and gallowglass charged
one whole army—the fame of the Eng-
lish army, so hardly gotten is now
vanished and I wrecked and dishon-
ored by other men's deeds.”
The deputy’s next step was to dis-
honor himself even more signally by
his own deed. He bribed Shane’s mes-
senger to slay his lord, but the plan
miscarried. The fidelity of the clan
stood like a burnished cuirass between
the O’Neill and the enemies of O’Neill,
foreign or native. By this time, the
“Annals of the Four Masters” tedl us,
Shane had “assumed the sovereign
command of all Ulster from Drogheda
to the Erne, so that he might be called
the provisional king of Ulster.” Eliz-
abeth was bound to treat him as an
equal and when he suggested a parley
in London, a safe-conduct was for-
warded under the royal sign-manual.
Shane set forth with his retinue of
bard, brehon, and gallowglass and en-
tered the English capital in semi-
regal state, much to the wonder of
Clan London. He was perfectly will-
ing to recognize Elizabeth as sov-
ereign of Ireland, but he would not be
pestered by her deputies and ho in-
sisted, on being recognized himself as
the O’Neill in all privileges and trib-
utes thereto appertaining. The cour-
tiers made great play of his preten-
sions and dubbed him “O’Neill the
Great, cousin to St. Patrick, friend to
the queen of England, enemy to all
the world beside.”
Shane was excessively busy in
London. He plotted cheerfully with
the Spanish ambassador, which threw
the foreign ministry into alarm, and
he so impressed the queen that she
was willing he should remain
“O’Neill,” though she continued to
retain her own candidate up her
sleeve.
On his return to Ireland Shane set
about invading Tirconnell as tributary
to the O’Neill. As a matte? of fact
the O’Donnell had been declared ex-
empt from his levies, but Shane could
not keep his hands out of the heredi-
tary feud between Cinel-Connal and
Cinel Owen. It was a feud so per-
manent and intense in Irish history
that the Senachies declared Owen and
Connal had been born at grips with
one another. It - as a feud that was
to lose Shane the O’Neillship and to
lose Ireland Ulster. For the time in-
deed Sussex was glad to keep the
peace and bide his time. The name
of “O’Neill” v/as confirmed to Shane
“until the queen should decorate him
by another mofe honorable name.”
To consolidate the peace and to
celebrate the agreement, Sussex sent
a cask of wine to Dungannon, from
which Shane most unwisely essayed to
drink the queen’s health. As a result
he and his chief gentlemen found
themselves temporarily poisoned;
Shane remonstrated with some indig-
nation, but it was the carrier of the
wine and not Susse# who was impris-
oned for the offense. Meanwhile,
Shane continued to rule Ulster, but
not by any means as a successful ban-
dit rules the valleys from his throne
upon the mountains. Poets and men
of literature were supported under his
patronage.
Shane’s undoing proceeded not
from the castle, but from himself. In
an evil hour he remembered he had
once promised to treat the mercenary
Scots as though they were his own en-
emies. His promise to the queen,
coupled with some annoyance at the
position of the MacDonnells had ac-
quired in Antrim, brought him into ac-
tion. At Glenflesk ho routed the Red-
shanks and slew Angas and Shemus
MacDonnell. Carried away by his
own success, he proceeded to sweep
Ulster as with a broom. The earl of
Kildare he thrust out of Dundrum and
Bagenal out of Newry. Sidney, who
was once more deputy, made some ef-
fort to parley, but Shane’s pride spoke
out in historic utterance. Never was
a saner or more honorable or proud-
er speech made by an asserter of Irish
freedom. It well befitted one whom
the annalists '•Mled ‘Shane an Diomas,
the proud.” N
“1 care not to be made an earl, un-
less I may be higher and better than
an earl; for I am in blood and power
better than the best of them, and 1
will give place to none but my cousin
of Kildare, for that he is of my house.
You have made a wise man of Mc-
Carty More. I confess I keep as good
a man as he. For the queen I confess
she is my sovereign, but I never made
peace with her but at her own seek-
ing. Whom am I to trust? When I
came unto the earl of Sussex upon
safe-conduct, he offered me the cour-
tesy of a handlock. When I was with
th9 queen, she said to me herself that
I had safe-conduct to come and go,
but it wa3 not said when I might go.
They kept me there until I had agreed
to things against my honor and profit.
That made me make war, and if it
were to do again, I would do it. My
ancestors were kings of Ulster and Ul-
ster is mine, and shall be mine. O’Don-
nell shall never come into his own
country nor Bagenal into Newry, nor
Kildare into Lecale. They are now
mine. With the sword I won them,
with the sword I will keep them.”
But Shane’s last hour was on the
scales of destiny. His overbearing
ways had won him more serious foes
in Ulster itself than in England. Ger-
aldines, Maguires, and O’Donnells
hemmed him in on every side. He
was compelled to retreat to his last
fortress on the banks of Lough Neagh
—the sacred lake of the O’Neills. This
fortress he genially christened Fuath
na Gall (hate of the foreigners)! In
his extremity he was compelled to
make alliance with his old enemies
the Redshanks. Before they could
come to his assistance he had been
routed by the avenging O’Donnells.
The Four Masters’ record the last
battle of Shane O’Neill—called the
Proud:
“However, the Cinel-Owen (O’Neills).
were at length defeated by dint of
fighting and forced to abandon the
field, and retreat by the way they
had come. It was not easy, for the
tide had flowed into the Fearsad, but
the fierceness of the people who were
in pursuit of them compelled them to
face it. Eagerly they plunged into
the swollen sea and a countless num-
ber were drowned in the deep full
tide. O’Donnelly, O’Neill’s own foster
brother, and the person most faithful
and dear to him, was slain, and Brian
O’Neill and his brother and MacDon-
nell, O’Neill’s constable.”
It was a disastrous day for Ireland,
for O’Donnell’s victory was England’s.
O'Neill fled across Ulster to Gushen
dun, where he met the MacDonnells,
who had come at his summons out of
Scotland. The MacDonnells prepared
him a banquet. But high words arose
between his followers and the Scots,
and Shane was cut down by claymores
as he left the table. The greatest dan-
ger to England’s rule in Ireland had
been obviated by an accidental brawl.
The body of Shane, covered only by a
kern’s shirt, was flung into the old
church hard by.
A frenzy of joy swept across the
Channel at the news of his death. An
act of parliament was passed pro-
claiming the blood of O’Neill to be
"corrupt and disabled forever.” All
the rights and tributes and jurisdic-
tions of the O’Neill were swept aside.
O’Neill land passed into the queen’s
gift and was conferred on Turlough
O’Neill as the nominee of the crown.
Such had been the terror of Shane’s
name and such the power of his red
hand that the old geographers solemn-
ly marked on the ordnance survey of
the time in the northeast corner of
Ireland:
“Here Shane O’Nial was slayne.”
S. Ia
41 By FRANK FILSON
4 t
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(Copyright. 1916, by W- G. Chapman.)
Old man Wimpole, the woman-hater,
strode down the street of Tuxtree, a
new benignity in his manner, a new
hat on his head, and a flpwer in his
buttonhole. He went toward the sta-
tion, and presently ascended the hill
again beside a very pretty young wom-
an, who looked a little self-conscious
under the scrutiny of the neighbors.
“His fourth,” said Mr. Stiles, the
druggist, to his assistant.
“Going daffy?” inquired the assis-
tant.
“No, I guess he’s advertised so much
in business, with such success, that
he thinks he can get results the same
way in his domestic arrangements.”
Old man Wimpole, who had never
married, had, in fact, scandalized the
neighbors by advertising that he
wished-to adopt a daughter. The news
had been published in surrounding
cities, and, as a result, numerous
young women had climbed the hill, to
retire baffled -in their quest.
The quest was worth while, for old
man Wimpole was worth two hundred
thousand.
Finally the choice settled upon a
Miss Higginson, who remained just a
week. The next was a Miss Gray, who
stayed thirteen days. Miss Fellows,
her successor, lasted a month and a
half, and had expressed the opinion to
Mr. Stiles, only the day before leav-
ing, that she thought her job was se-
cure.
Why old man Wimpole had detached
three successive females- from his
household he proceeded to explain to
Amelia Darragh, who, all agreed as
"He Bit the Hand That Reared Him.”
she ascended the hill, was the best-
looking and the most ladylike of the
lot.
“I’m a rich man, but I’m not a happy
man,” confessed old man Wimpole. “I
brought up a nephew:—Jim Wimpole,
by name. I took him from the insti-
tution where he had been put when his
mother followed his father to the
grave. I reared him. And he bit the
hand that reared him.”
Miss Amelia remained perfectly si-
lent instead of expressing sympathy,
and old man Wimpole nodded approv-
ingly. Amelia Darragh, with her
black eyes and red cheeks, her atmos-
phere at once demure and keen, had
pleased him the moment she came
from Tipton to answer his advertise-
ment.
“He bit the hand that reared him,”
continued old man Wimpole. “That
was two years ago, after he came back
from college. I am a man who insists
on obedience. Not that I’m hard, But
my son—he was a son to me—went
and married a hussy from heaven
knows where, without saying a word
to me. They telegraphed to me for
forgiveness. 1 wired back not to show
their faces in Tuxtree, or I’d have
them arrested.^ Not that I could have
done so. But it scared them. That’s
the sort of man I am.”
Miss Amelia opened her lips as if to
speak, and then closed them again.
“I wanted someone to take care of
me. 1 advertised for a daughter. First
woman that came along thought I
wanted a wife instead. Wanted to
cinch my money. I warned her. But
she would make love to me. Told me
I was a handsome old man. That set-
tled her hash.
“Daughter Number Two held out
vo weeks till I caught her reading
• dummy will I’d put in the desk,
leaving all my money to the Cats’ and
Dogs’ Friendly and Benevolent so-
ciety. Then she broke loose. Asked
me if I knew the happiness of matri-
mony. That fixed her. She went.
“Daughter Number Three was the
best of the crowd. Sort of sharp-tem-
pered. I can stand for a natural in-
firmity, as long as it’s natural. Can’t
stand .for fakes. What started me
thinking was when I told her her back
hair was working loose, and if she
didn’t take care she’d pull it off with
her hat. Never opened her mouth at
me. I tried the dummy will, but that
didn’t feaze her. I knew something
was wrong. Pretended to be engaged
to a widow up Littlewood way, and
then she sailed in. Called me an old
tyrant and a deceiver and swore she’d
bring suit for breach of promise
against me. I fired her.
“Now remember, I want a daughter,
not a wife. Get that through your
head, Daughter Amelia, and you’ll
stick, and maybe come into a thousand
dollars when I die. I’m sixty now, and
my father died at ninety. I’m living
on my capital, and if I live to ninety
there’ll be just a thousand left.”
“Yes, fathqr,” replied Miss Amelia,
taking off her hat. ^“I’ll go and fix
things in the kitchen. You can smoke
all over the house.”
“What d’you mean?” stammered old
man Wimpole.
“What I say. I always mean that,”
replied Miss Amelia.
He learned what she meant during
successive days. First, the cuspidor
was removed from the porch. Then,
old man Wimpole found that if he
wasn’t down to breakfast by eight ho
got none. Third, old man Wimpole’s
grog-bottle, which he used, it must
be admitted, moderately, v/as found
on the ash heap—broken.
Between annoyance and apprecia^
tion at a discipline which he recognized
he needed, old man Wimpole was soon
reduced to submission. Very candidly
Amelia told him that the job was no
sinecure, that if he wasn’t satisfied
he could look for somebody else, and
that if he did he wouldn’t get anybody
who had her interest in him. Old man
Wimpole agreed.
“He’ll marry her. She’s got him,
the minx!” said the druggist’s wife to
her husband.
So old man Wimpole thought. Des-
perately, because he knew that the
feminine sex is pastmaster in wiles,
he admitted defeat. He could not do
without Miss Amelia; he could not do
with her.
He told her so. Moreover, he told
her so one evening, when they were
in the garden, and there was a moon.
That shows how far old man Wimpole
was gone.
“Amelia,” he said, “I don’t want you
for a daughter any more. I want you
to be my wife.”
Amelia, who had thrust her arm
through his in true daughterly fash-
ion, withdrew it indignantly.
“Father, how dare "you lay such a
trap for me!” she exclaimed. “You
know very w-ell you advertised for a
daughter, not for a wife, and you know
what you said to me as soon as I got
inside the house.”
“But this is real. I love you,
Amelia.”
“You want to get rid of me. You
think I’m going to do what the others
did. I don’t intend to.”
“Amelia! Listen to me!” shouted
old man Wimpole, so that he was over-
heard in the street by curious pedes-
trians. “I love you. Never mind what
I said. I want to marry you. Do you
understand? I want you to be my
wife. I don’t want a daughter any
more.”
Amelia looked at him with a sort of
affectionate glance. “Then, father,”
she said, “I’m sorry to say that it is
impossible. In fact, I am married
already.”
“What!” thundered old man Wim-
pole. “You have been deceiving mo
all along?”
“In what way, father?”
“Pretending to be a single girl—”
“I beg your pardon, father,” returned
Amelia. “I have never stated whether
I was married or not. It was you who
tacked the Miss to my name. Yes, I
am married. And happily married.
And how have I deceived you?”
“You—you—you didn't tell me—”
stammered the disillusioned old man.
“Why should it be deceiving you
even if I didn’t? Can’t a daughter
get married? In fact, my husband
wants me back in a few days, unless—-
unless you want us both to come and
live with you,” said Amelia kindly.
Old man Wimpole glared at her.
“What is your true name? Let me
know who you are, anyway,” he said.
“Mrs. Jim Wimpole,” said Amelia
softly.
Old man Wimpole jumped a foot
into the air. “What!” he yelled. “It
was a put-up job, then—you and that
scoundrel Jim?”
Amelia nodded, and suddenly two
tears trickled down her cheeks. “Fath-
er,” she pleaded, “forgive us both. W©
love each other, and we both love you.
And, if you will, you—you shall have
back your grog-bottle.”
And old man Wimpole, in acquies-
cence, planted a kiss upon his daugh-
ter’s cherry lips.
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The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 83, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 10, 1916, newspaper, June 10, 1916; Lampasas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth906549/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lampasas Public Library.