400 years ago this summer, the great leader O’Sullivan Beare had his throat cut in Spain
DONAL Cam O’Sullivan, chief of Beara, had his throat cut in Madrid 400 years ago this summer. It happened in Plaza de Santo Domingo, near the royal palace, on July 16, 1618.
Whilst relatives stood grieving over his corpse, other Irish ran after the passing coach of the king, shouting ‘Justicia! Justicia’! It stopped and Philip III gave orders to have the killer hauled out of the church, where he had taken refuge.
Donal Cam, aged 57, was apparently emerging from Mass when he had come upon the aftermath of a fight. It wasn’t a drunken brawl amongst Irish emigrants.
Philip O’Sullivan, his nephew, had been engaged in a swordfight with Dubliner, John Bath.
Bath, already wounded in the face, suddenly struck out, killing the Irish leader, slashing first his arm and then his neck.
Philip later wrote, in his Catholic History of Ireland, that he had fought the duel to defend the honour of his family against the slanders of Bath.
John, in a letter from prison, claimed that he had been ambushed and was being mugged by the Cork men. He said that he had no intention of fighting a duel, as he did not have the proper weaponry, possessing only a demi-sword and a dagger.
That summer was a time of growing political tension across Europe, as Protestants and Catholics squared up to each other in Germany, in what would eventually become the 30 Years War. The Spanish government, itself divided, was having to make a decision for war or peace.
O’Sullivan, recently made the Conde de Birhaven and appointed a member of a prestigious Spanish military order, was hoping for a renewal of the war against England, and an invasion of Ireland, to facilitate a comeback there of Gaelic Irishmen like himself.
On the other hand, Old English émigrés, like John Bath, wanted the maintenance of peace. They were hoping that the so-called Spanish match — in which King James’s heir Prince Charles was to marry a Spanish Infanta — might deliver religious toleration in Ireland.
These political differences were compounded by the fact that the Gaelic Irish in Madrid believed that John Bath had turned informer on a recent visit to Dublin; they were asking the Spanish authorities to pack him off to the navy, rather than let him remain an English agent in their midst.
These allegations seem to find backing in the response of the British embassy in Spain. It was soon working to get Bath out of jail and back to his church sanctuary, ‘whence he’, as the ambassador wrote, ‘will easily make an escape’.
The ambassador was very anxious to be clear of any suspicion attaching to himself or his delegation, insisting that the killing had happened ‘upon a private quarrel’.
The ‘private’ aspect was certainly important. O’Sullivan had a substantial pension from the Spanish crown and had obviously lent money to John Bath.
A lot of resentment was building up. Bath felt he was being demeaned; Philip, who challenged him to the duel, thought that he was abusing the favour he was being afforded.
In Spain, Irish social and cultural relations had been upset, if not totally upended. Religiously fervent Gaels, like the O’Sullivans, who were considered barbarians to Dubliners, such as Bath, were being feted. O’Sullivan’s recent promotion to a noble title was, by turns, an insult to Old English Catholics.
The killer, a man of some education himself — his brother, William, a Jesuit, had been head of the Irish College at Salamanca — signed himself from jail with the impressive, ‘Don Juan Batheo y Finglas’.
Whatever the cause, political or personal, whether it was manslaughter or murder, Donal Cam O’Sullivan deserves a proper monument in that little square in Madrid.
He had fought at the battle of Kinsale, staged a rearguard action in West Cork, and then led the remnants of his people on the famous retreat from Bantry Bay to Leitrim.
In exile, he successfully lobbied the Spanish state on behalf of all the exiles arriving there and founded the Irish college at Santiago de Compostela.
Such a statue could be easily accomplished, as a full-length portrait of him was commissioned when he became a crusader for Spain, as a knight of Santiago.
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