It will be conceded to me that the Irish who opposed the landing of the
English in 1169 were Separatists. Else why oppose those who came to
annex? It will be conceded that the twelve generations of the Irish
nation, the “mere Irish” of the English state-papers, who maintained a
winning fight against English domination in Ireland from 1169 to 1509
(roughly speaking), were Separatist generations. The Irish princes who
brought over Edward Bruce and made him King of Ireland were plainly
Separatists. The Mac Murrough who hammered the English for fifty years
and twice out-generalled and out-fought an English king was obviously a
Separatist. The turbulence of Shane O’Neill becomes understandable when
it is realised that he was a Separatist; Separatists are apt, from of
old, to be cranky and sore-headed. The Fitzmaurice who brought the
Spaniards to Smerwick Harbour was a mere Separatist: he was one of the
pro-Spaniards of those days--Separatists are always pro-Something of
which the English disapprove. That proud dissembling O’Neill and that
fiery O’Donnell who banded the Irish and the Anglo-Irish against the
English, who brought the Spaniards to Kinsale, who fought the war that,
but for a guide losing his way, would have been known as the Irish War
of Separation, were, it will be granted, Separatists. Rory O’More was
uncommonly like a Separatist. Owen Roe O’Neill was admittedly a
Separatist, the leader of the Separatist Party in the Confederation of
Kilkenny. When O’Neill sent his veterans into the battle-gap at Benburb
with the words “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, charge
for Ireland!” the word “Ireland” had for him a very definite meaning. If
Sarsfield fought technically for an English king, the popular literature
of the day leaves no doubt that in the people’s mind he stood for
Separation, and that it was not an English faction but the Irish nation
that rallied behind the walls of Limerick. So, up to 1691 Ireland was
Separatist.