Battle of Glentaisie (1565)
Who Fought
Shane O'Neill: approximately 2,000 men; MacDonnells: approximately 500 men at the battle, with further reinforcements not yet arrived
History & Significance
The Battle of Glentaisie, was an Irish battle fought in the north of Ulster on 2 May 1565. The result was a victory for Shane O'Neill over the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg. The conflict was a part of the political and military struggle, involving the English and occasionally the Scots, for control of northern Ireland. Although the MacDonalds were a Scottish family, based principally on the island of Islay in the Hebrides, they had long been associated with the Gaelic polity rather than the Kingdom of Scotland.
The settlement of the Glynnes of Antrim and the north coast of Antrim by the MacDonnells of Dunnyveg and affiliated families had been worrying the English authorities since the later years of King Henry VIII of England as the primary allegiance of the MacDonnells was to the Scottish crown. Shane's O'Neill's alliance with the MacDonnells had provided him with the army of redshanks that permitted him challenge his father Conn Bacach, Earl of Tyrone during the 1550s.
Lord Deputy Thomas Radclyffe, Earl of Sussex had led a well equipped expedition by land and sea to destroy the MacDonnell settlements in 1558. Sussex's conspicuous lack of success had encouraged the English to make an uneasy truce with the MacDonnells in 1560 in order to detach them from their alliance with Shane. During this truce an increased sense of security in their new territories encouraged the MacDonnells to undertake a number of building projects such as the rebuilding of James MacDonnell of Dunnyveg's castle of Red Bay which commanded the strategically important landing beach at Glenariffe (Waterfoot).
During 1564–5 the expansion of MacDonnell influence to Lecale threatened to bring much of the eastern coastline of Ulster directly under their control. Much of the province of Ulster had now come under Shane's authority in the period following his return from his visit to London. The reduction of MacDonnell power would remove a growing threat that the English had already begun to exploit against him before his London visit. It would also serve to underline the failure of Sussex in his undertaking of the same task seven years earlier, and dramatically display to Queen Elizabeth I of England just how useful her recognition of Shane's hegemony in Ulster could be to her.
120 longbow men Scots (led by Brian Carrach MacDonnell, a younger brother of James of Dunnyveg James MacDonald, 6th of Dunnyveg and Sorley Boy)
40 Scots 'Redshank' swordsmen (led by Brian Carragh MacDonnell)
550 Kernagh armed with short throwing darts and short swords or dirks.
The Macdonnells could expect Shane's sizeable host to take some weeks to cross from south down into their territory on the Antrim coast. The lord of Dunnyveg, and of the Route and Glynnes, James MacDonald, 6th of Dunnyveg, and his brothers started gathering as many warriors in the Highlands and Islands as they could muster. However, Shane advanced with unprecedented speed, cutting a road '6 marching men wide' in a single week through the dense woodland of the forest of Killultagh, "Coil Ultagh, the great wood of Ulster," situated along the shores of Lough Neigh between modern Lurgan and Aldergrove. Within a week the hosting arrived at Edenduffcarrick, the principal castle of the Clandeboye O'Neills (modern Shane's Castle near Antrim town) where Shane fortified an old rath at Gallanagh while awaiting the hosting of the Clandeboye O'Neills.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Glentaisie (1565) lies on Unnamed Extrusive Rocks, Palaeogene, bedrock that formed in the Paleogene. The rock here is mafic lava and mafic tuff.
The most striking detail of the campaign is the extraordinary speed with which Shane O'Neill moved his army of around 2,000 men through terrain considered almost impassable. In a single week his forces cut a road six marching men wide through the dense woodland of Killultagh, the great wood of Ulster along the shores of Lough Neagh, arriving at the Clandeboye O'Neill stronghold of Edenduffcarrick before the MacDonnells had time to assemble adequate reinforcements. This feat of logistical improvisation confounded all MacDonnell expectations and rendered their carefully laid plans for gathering a Highland host entirely redundant.
- Clan MacDonnell of Antrim; Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg; Clan MacLean: 300–400 killed
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- Battle of Glentaisie · Wikipedia
- Glentaisie · Wikipedia