Shan, who was perhaps drunk, heard the words; and forgetting where he was, flung back the lie in Gillespie's throat. Gillespie sprung to his feet, ran out of the tent, and raised the slogan of the Isles. A hundred dirks flashed into the moonlight, and the Irish wherever they could be found were struck down and stabbed. Some two or three found their horses and escaped; all the rest were murdered; and Shan himself, gashed with fifty wounds, was wrapped in a kern's old shirt' and flung into a pit dug hastily among the ruined arches of Glenarm.

Even there what was left of him was not allowed to rest; four days later Piers, the captain of Knockfergus, hacked the head from the body, and carried it on a spear's point through Drogheda to Dublin, where staked upon a spike it bleached on the battlements of the castle, a symbol to the Irish world of the fate of Celtic heroes.1

So died Shan O'Neil, one of those champions of Irish nationality, who under varying features have repeated themselves in the history of that country with periodic regularity. At once a drunken ruffian and a keen and fiery patriot, the representative in his birth of the line of the ancient kings, the ideal in his character of all which Irishmen most admired, regardless in his actions of the laws of God and man, yet the devoted subject in his creed of the Holy Catholic Church; with an eye

Sir William Fitzwilliam to Cecil, June 10: Irish MSS. Rolls House.

which could see far beyond the limits of his own island, and a tongue which could touch the most passionate chords of the Irish heart; the like of him has been seen many times in that island, and the like of him may be seen many times again, 'till the Ethiopian has changed his skin and the leopard his spots.'

Many of his letters remain, to the Queen, to Sussex, to Sidney, to Cecil, and to foreign princes; far-reaching, full of pleasant flattery and promises which cost him. nothing; but showing true ability and insight. Sinner though he was, he too in his turn was sinned against; in the stained page of Irish misrule there is no second instance in which an English ruler stooped to treachery or to the infamy of attempted assassination; and it is not to be forgotten that Lord Sussex, who has left under his own hand the evidence of his own baseness, continued a trusted and favoured councillor of Elizabeth, while Sidney, who fought Shan and conquered him in the open field, found only suspicion and hard words.

How just Sidney's calculations had been, how ably his plans were conceived, how bravely they were carried out, was proved by their entire success, notwithstanding the unforeseen and unlikely calamity at Londonderry. In one season Ireland was reduced for the first time to universal peace and submission. While the world was full of Sidney's praises Elizabeth persevered in writing letters to him which Cecil in his own name and the name of the council was obliged to disclaim. But

at last the Queen too became gradually gracious; she condescended to acknowledge that he had recovered Ireland for her crown, and thanked him for his services.