The Journey of the Ulster Princes from Ireland

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Ulster Princes, Hugh O'Neill and Rory O'Donnell, left Ireland for the continent on 14 September 1607, unknown to the Dublin authorities, and without seeking the necessary permission from James I. O'Neill's secretary, Tadhg Ó Cianain, took notes during their travels and wrote them up into a coherent narrative in Rome sometime during 1609. Nollaig Ó Muraile, the latest editor of the text, divides it into eight sections: 1) Over the Sea to France 2) Sojourn in Flanders 3) Southwards over the Alps 4) Into-Italy from Como to Loreto 5) Pilgrimage to Loreto 6) Rome-the End of the Road 7) Visiting the Great Roman Churches 8) Death in Rome and other happenings We will follow Ó Muraile's subdivisions, concentrating on some more than others.The sojourn in Flanders deserves particular attention because it was in the Spanish Netherlands that the Ulster princes first encountered the Pietas Austriaca fostered by the Hapsburg dynasty. According to Anna Coreth, the significance of this term was based on 'the conviction that God had given the house of Austria a certain mission for the empire and the church, because of the religious merits of its ancestors, or, more particularly, of the great ancestor, Rudolf of Hapsburg. The same piety became a holy binding heritage, which had to be faithfully followed and constantly renewed as the destiny of the house depended on it'. O' Neill's encounter with this particular dimension of the Arch-Dukes' rule, particularly at the Shrine of Hal, enabled him to develop his self-image as a godly prince of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and consequently deserving of military aid from both the Hapsburgs and the papacy. It is highly unlikely that the Irish party would have gone out of their way to visit the Marian shrine of Loreto, were it not for the importance of this shrine in the Archdukes' spirituality. When the Ulster princes reached Rome, their encounter with the pietas austriaca had morphed into a pietas ulidiana or Ulster piety. Despite an initial welcome by the papacy and the Spanish ambassador, King Philip of Spain had no intention of allowing O'Neill to go to Madrid and thus put the treaty of London, signed between England and Spain in 1604, into jeopardy. Retaining him in Rome with the pope's consent, however, meant that O'Neill could prove a useful trump card should hostilities be resumed between Spain and England. This is the context against which we will read Ó Cianain's narrative. While an observer as astute as Tomas Ó Fiaich described Ó Cianain's reaction to the splendours of Baroque Europe as that of a country boy seeing the Taj Mahal for the first time, our investigation of the text will reveal that it is, on the contrary, a most sophisticated and nuanced work of art.