Quiknets blogs

Four hundred years ago, on January 20, the year 1607 was ushered in by a massive surge in the Irish Sea, sending high, sudden waves up the Bristol Channel and causing the death of thousands of coastal dwellers. Evidence now suggests that the wave was a tsunami, triggered by an earthquake in the Irish Continental shelf. Presumably the south and south-east coasts of Ireland were also affected, as well as the north-east of France, where many must have lost their lives.

By the end of the year, another tsunami, of much greater political, social and economic consequence hit Ireland, when the leading Gaelic Chieftains of Ulster, O’Neill of Tyrone and O’Donnell of Donegal, and others, suddenly abandoned their lands and fled to the Continent, in the Flight of the Earls, September, 1607, probably the most important single event in Irish history, which led to the removal of the old order in Ireland, the seizure of Irish lands by English adventurers and Scottish planters, the exile of able-bodied men to foreign shores, ultimately to slaughter and massacres in Ireland, and Cromwellian ethnic cleansing of the Catholic population. Ireland, once a major node of European civilization, a world-scale center of learning and literature and Christianity, a nation that might have had its own colonies and control of its own economic fortunes, became reduced to the ranks of “also-ran” minor countries, with little influence on world events and dependent on the goodwill of others for economic survival, where we remain today.

Our government has no plans that I am aware of to commemorate the Flight, to consider the circumstances that caused it, and publicly examine the consequences. The opportunity is being passed to remind our European partners and others what contribution Ireland under the “Gaelic order” had made to civilisation….no travelling exhibitions, no television series, no movies, not even themed promotions of Irish products and tourism abroad. No plans have been announced to gather together the descendents of our former Chiefs in some ceremony that might give closure to the event. No explanations are to be offered to the Irish diaspora; no apologies for the hardship and humiliation borne by their forebears. Nothing from our new Gaelic leaders. Just an embarrassed silence.