neous patriotism and
courage of individuals. At times one clan alone, or two clans,
maintained the struggle. Arrayed against them were all the resources
of a mighty realm--shipping, arms, munitions of war, gold,
statecraft, a widespread and calculating diplomacy, the prestige of a
great Sovereign and a famous Court--and the Irish clan and its
chieftain, by the sheer courage of its members, by their bodily
strength and hardihood and feats of daring, for years kept the issue
in doubt.

When Hugh O'Neill, leagued with Red Hugh O'Donnell, challenged the
might of Elizabeth, he had nothing to rely upon but the stout hearts
and arms of the men of Tir-owen and Tir-Conail. Arms and armaments
were far from Ulster. They could be procured only in Spain or
elsewhere on the continent. English shipping held the sea; the
English mint the coinage. The purse of England, compared to that of
the Ulster princes, was inexhaustible. Yet for nine years the
courage, the chivalry, the daring and skill of these northern
clansmen, perhaps 20,000 men in all, held all the might of England at
bay. Had the Spanish king at any time during the contest made good
his promise to lend effective aid to the Irish princes, O'Neill would
have driven Elizabeth from Ireland, and a sovereign State would today
be the guardian of the freedom of the western seas for Europe and the
world. It took "the best army in Europe" and a vast treasure, as Sir
John Davies asserted, to conquer two Ulster clans three hundred years
ago. The naked valor of the Irishman excelled the armed might of
Tudor England; and the struggle that gave the empire of the seas to
Britain was won not in the essay of battle, but in the assay of the
mint.

It is this aspect of the Irish fight for freedom that dignifies an
otherwise lost cause. Ever defeated, yet undefeated, a
long-remembering race believes that these native qualities must in
the end prevail. The battle has been from the first one of manhood
against might. The State Papers, the official record of English rule
in Ireland, leave us rarely in doubt. We read in that record that,
where the appeal was to the strength or courage of the opposing men,
the Irish had nothing to fear from English arms.

Thus the Earl of Essex, in a despatch to Elizabeth, explained the
failure of his great expedition in 1599 against O'Neill and
O'Donnell. "These rebels ... have (though I do unwillingly confess
it) better bodies and perfecter use of their arms t