In the sixteenth century, Ulster was being colonised by the English and Scottish. The ‘planters’ were deeply suspicious of the native Irish and their ways, and especially of their ancient system of law, known as Brehon law, which actually listed women’s rights. This was unheard of under English law and was deeply unsettling to the colonists, especially when the women in question – who had, after all, the power to participate in war councils – were of the stature of Iníon Dubh.
Iníon Dubh (Dark Daughter) was the nickname of Fionnghuala MacDonnell, an ambitious political mover and shaker. She was the daughter of James MacDonnell, lord of the isles. His territory comprised parts of County Antrim and some Irish and Scottish islands, such as Rathlin and Islay. As part of an ongoing feud between the MacDonnells and the O’Neills, James was killed by Shane O’Neill, his main rival and the most powerful chief in Ulster. It was politically expedient for his widow, Iníon Dubh’s Scottish mother, Agnes Campbell, to marry Shane’s successor, Turlough Luineach O’Neill, and move to County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.
Sometime around 1570, Iníon Dubh was married off to Aodh Dubh O’Donnell, known as The O’Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell (Donegal) and the chief of her kinspeople, the O’Donnell clan. Iníon Dubh brought to the alliance 1,000 Antrim-Scots soldiers, known as gallowglasses. As was usual in Brehon law, goods brought to the marriage by the bride remained her property and could be deployed as and when she chose; in the sixteenth century, soldiers qualified as ‘goods’.
Iníon Dubh was ambitious and it was not long before she was openly acknowledged as the ‘head of advice and counsel’ to her ageing husband. After The O’Donnell became senile, she not only controlled the territory and finances of Tyrconnell, but, as she was entitled to in law, negotiated with The O’Neill and other chieftains instead of and on behalf of The O’Donnell. Meanwhile, Iníon Dubh was also busy raising her four children: Red Hugh (Aodh Rua), Nuala, Rory and Cathbharr.
In 1587 the seventeen-year-old Red Hugh was captured along with his two friends, Donal Gorm MacSweeney and Eoghan mac Toole O’Gallagher, and held hostage in Dublin Castle by lord deputy Sir John Perrot. His mother spent the next five years trying to get him out of the Castle, while at the same time managing her husband’s territory. Next to securing Red Hugh’s release, her main concern was to defend her son’s claim to the chieftaincy of the O’Donnell clan, and in this she was prepared to do all that was necessary.
In 1588 Hugh Gavelach O’Neill (Aodh Ó Gallchuabhair), her husband’s nephew and her son’s main rival for the chieftainship, attempted a coup to take the O’Donnell lands by force. Iníon Dubh had him killed by her own loyal gallowglasses. Two years later her stepson, Donnell O’Donnell, incited and bribed by the English, tried the same thing. Iníon Dubh had him killed as well.
Meanwhile, in December 1591, Red Hugh, along with his friend, cousin and fellow prisoner Art O’Neill, escaped from Dublin Castle’s dungeons. After a horrendous winter journey across the mountains, Red Hugh reached home, but he was suffering from severe frostbite, which resulted in the amputation of his toes. Art did not make it home – he died of exposure in the mountains.
By 1592 Red Hugh was fully recovered and ready to take on his new role. Having got rid of the rest of the opposition, Red Hugh’s only real remaining rival for the chieftaincy was Niall Garbh O’Donnell, his father’s grand-nephew. Iníon Dubh was worried about the ambitious Niall Garbh and effectively got rid of him too when, in an astute political move, she gave him her only daughter, Nuala, in marriage. Iníon Dubh persuaded her husband to abdicate, whereupon she at last saw her son inaugurated as The O’Donnell, chief of the clan.
Over the next nine years, Red Hugh O’Donnell joined forces with The O’Neill, earl of Tyrone, and Ireland came closer to driving the English out than it ever had before. But on a freezing Christmas Eve in 1601, at Kinsale in County Cork, all was lost. The decisive battle was played out between the English forces, led by Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, the lord deputy of Ireland, and the Irish O’Donnell–O’Neill forces joined by the troops of their Spanish ally, Del Águila. Things did not go well for the Irish: some of the Spanish troops refused to come to the battlefield; The O’Neill and his men became disorientated in the foul, misty weather conditions; key players, such as Iníon Dubh’s erstwhile son-in-law, Niall Garbh, went over to the English side.
The crushing, bloody defeat of the Irish took just three hours to accomplish. After the rout, the cream of the Irish nobility were forced to flee to the Continent – an event that has since been commemorated in story and song as the Flight of the Earls – robbing Ireland of its leaders and ending any hope of overthrowing the English invaders.
All of Iníon Dubh’s sons were dead by 1608: Red Hugh in 1602 of poisoning; Rory in 1608; and Cathbharr in 1608. Her daughter, Nuala, spent her life defending her young nephew. The boy, also called Hugh, was the son of Cathbharr O’Donnell and his wife, Rosa O’Doherty, and was therefore Red Hugh’s nephew and the heir to the chieftaincy. In 1608 too, the treacherous Niall Garbh was sent to the Tower of London, accused of treason – the vengeful Iníon Dubh had implicated him in a rising of the O’Doherty clan in County Derry. He died a broken man, in prison, eighteen years later.
As for the Dark One herself, she retired to Kilmacrenan, once the heartland of the ancient O’Donnell territory, where she lived out the rest of her life in relative peace and quiet. The title of The O’Donnell, leader of the clan, which Iníon Dubh had fought so hard to protect, still exists and is held by a descendant of Niall Garbh.