ed on
to Donegal. This was once a thriving town, inhabited by English
colonists. At the time of Sidney's arrival it was a pile of ruins,
'in the midst of which, like a wild beast's den, strewed round with
mangled bones, rose the largest and strongest castle which he had seen
in Ireland. It was held by one of O'Donel's kinsmen, to whom Shane,
to attach him to his cause, had given his sister to wife. At the
appearance of the old chief with the English army, it was immediately
surrendered. O'Donel was at last rewarded for his fidelity and
sufferings; and the whole tribe, with eager protestations of
allegiance, gave sureties for their future loyalty.' Sidney next
directed his march to Ballyshannon, and on by the coast of Sligo.
Passing over the bogs and mountains of Mayo, they came into Roscommon,
and then, 'leaving behind them as fruitful a country as was in
England or Ireland all utterly waste,' the army crossed the Shannon at
Athlone, swimming 'for lack of a bridge.' The results of this progress
are thus summed up by Mr. Froude. 'Twenty castles had been taken as
they went along and left in hands that could be trusted. In all that
long and painful journey Sidney was able to say that there had not
died of sickness but three persons; men and horses were brought
back in full health and strength, while her majesty's honour
was re-established among the Irishry, and grown to no small
veneration--"an expedition comparable only to Alexander's journey into
Bactria," wrote an admirer of Sidney to Cecil--revealing what to Irish
eyes appeared the magnitude of the difficulty, and forming a measure
of the effect which it produced. The English deputy had bearded Shane
in his stronghold, burned his houses, pillaged his people, and had
fastened a body of police in the midst of them, to keep them waking
in the winter nights. He had penetrated the hitherto impregnable
fortresses of mountain and morass; the Irish who had been faithful to
England were again in safe possession of their lands and homes. The
weakest, maddest, and wildest Celts were made aware that, when the
English were once roused to effort, they could crush them as the lion
crushes the jackal.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Vol. viii. p.407.]

O'Neill had followed the lord deputy to Lifford, and then marched on
to the Pale, expecting to retaliate upon the invaders with impunity.
But he was encountered by Warren St. Leger, lost 200 men, and was at
first hunted back over the border. He ag