Book Review: Swords Around the Cross--The Nine Years War by Timothy O'Donnell

 Swords Around the Cross--The Nine Years War: Ireland's Defense of Faith and Fatherland 1594-1603 by Timothy O'Donnell

The Irish have almost always been at odds with their neighbors to the east. The late 1500s saw a particularly hard oppression of the Irish by the United Kingdom under Queen Elizabeth. Red Hugh O'Donnell of Tirconnaill in the northwest and Hugh O'Neill of Tyrone in the north raised an army to fight against the British invaders. This book chronicles the Nine Years War, fought from 1594 to 1603. The conflict was not just about nationalism. England had just established the Anglican Church and wanted to impose their own system on other subjects. The Irish were fiercely Catholic and bristled under a foreign power that took their lands and their churches while requiring them to accept the queen as head of the church. The Irish appealed to the pope for moral authority to fight and to Spain for material resources to fight. They received both and spent nearly a decade fighting for their independence.

At the time, Ireland was still not united. Many different clans had authority over their regions; no central authority existed. O'Donnell and O'Neill established The Catholic Confederacy and worked to unite the various clans against their common enemy. The war raged on in various parts of the country. The Irish did well even with the unsteady support of Catholic Spain. The final major battle of the war was the Siege of Kinsale in 1601 and 1602. The Irish had a chance to smash a large English army but on the day of battle several things went wrong, resulting in a humbling loss. The armies retreated and the leaders were eventually driven from Ireland. 

The narrative is written in an exciting style and includes many extended quotes from the correspondence and writings of the people involved in the war. The book unabashedly takes the Catholic point of view, which gives the story a dramatic sweep and enables O'Donnell (the author) to take in the larger picture. The facts of what happened in Ireland aren't the only relevant ones. England spent a lot of their resources fighting this war, which meant they had much fewer to devote to conflicts on the European continent, where Protestants and Catholics were in conflict as well. Spain spent fewer resources while being involved in those other conflicts as well as their development of colonies in the New World. The Nine Years War was more than just a local conflict with an unhappy ending.

Recommended.