O'Neill, Hugh [3rd Baron of Dungannon; 2nd Earl of Tyrone] (?1550-1616), leader of the Irish forces in the War of 1595-1603. After the assassination of his father by Shane O'Neill (?1530-1567) in 1558, he was brought up by Sir Henry Sidney at Penshurst. He commanded a troop of horse against the Irish in the Desmond War in the 1570s. He secured his position against dynastic enemies in Ulster by building up a range of strategic connections with major Gaelic families, including his own marital alliance with the O'Donnells of Tír Conaill (Co. Donegal). In 1585 he was made Earl of Tyrone, but soon began to resist attempts to extend Tudor control over Ulster, making political overtures to Philip II of Spain. In 1592 he organized the escape of Red Hugh O'Donnell from imprisonment in Dublin Castle. O'Neill continued an outward show of loyalty to the Crown, but in February 1595 he captured the Blackwater Fort, and was proclaimed a traitor. On 14 August 1598 O'Neill defeated and killed Sir Nicholas Bagenal at the Battle of the Yellow Ford. O'Neill now extended his authority through the midlands and into Munster, whilst O'Donnell consolidated Connacht. In September 1601, when the long-promised Spanish expeditionary force landed at Kinsale under Don Juan del Aquila, O'Neill was persuaded by O'Donnell to attempt to release the Spaniards from the siege laid by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy and his Irish allies. A premature attack on Mountjoy's forces resulted in a rout by his cavalry and a long retreat back to Ulster through a hostile countryside. O'Neill's submission resulted in a lenient treaty. The expansion of English power in Ulster proceeded rapidly in the following years and O'Neill came under increasing suspicion as Rory O'Donnell and the Maguires continued their entanglement with Spain. In 1607 O'Neill joined the other principal Ulster lords in the Flight of the Earls. Hugh O'Neill was an adept politician and gifted soldier who made the most of limited resources in a period of rapid change.
Bibliography
Hiram Morgan, Tyrone's Rebellion (1993).
