'To celebrate Women's International Day Anne highlights the remarkable life of ELEANOR COUNTESS OF DESMOND (1545-1638) the forgotten heroine of the Tudor Wars in Ireland.'
ELEANOR COUNTESS OF DESMOND (1545-1638)
A Forgotten Heroine of the Tudor Wars By ANNE CHAMBERS
‘Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands for their legs could not bear them, they looked like anatomies of death, they spoke like ghosts, crying out of their graves…in a short space there were none almost left and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast.’
So the English poet, Edmund Spenser, described the province of Munster in the year 1583. While the dreadful spectacle of famine, death and decay may have appalled his eyes, Spenser, together with the famous explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh, had actively participated in and personally benefited from Munster’s ruin, as the English Crown wrested the province from the grip of its once powerful overlord – Garret (Gerald) Fitzgerald, 15th Earl of Desmond who, from his headquarters at Askeaton castle in county Limerick, had dominated and controlled the wealth and politics of the province for decades.
By 1579, however, the writing was on the wall for Desmond. Rooted in the feudal tradition of a bygone era the world outside his Munster domain had moved on. Queen Elizabeth I of England viewed him as a threat to her power in Ireland, his intrigues with Spain a threat to England’s security and the vast acres under his control in Munster a potential goldmine. After years of prevarication in 1579 Elizabeth finally let loose the dogs of war. Desmond was proclaimed a traitor, a price on his head and his lands and numerous castles up for grabs.
