Tadhg O Cianain's diary of the flight

Quirinale Palace, Rome

Photograph of Quirinale Palace, Rome. This was the summer residence of Pope Paul V, and here the Ulster earls had an audience with him in May of 1608. However, they were unable to obtain his help and influence in getting them to Spain.

Sean Beattie

Quirinale Palace, Rome
Sean Beattie

Quirinale Palace, Rome

Photograph of Quirinale Palace, Rome. This was the summer residence of Pope Paul V, and here the Ulster earls had an audience with him in May of 1608. However, they were unable to obtain his help and influence in getting them to Spain.

Sean Beattie

Enlarge image

Accompanying Hugh O'Neill of Tyrone was a learned chronicler called Tadhg O Cianain, who kept an interesting daily record of their journey. He was poet and historian to the Maguires of Fermanagh.

Tadhg put his notes into narrative form in Rome in 1609. That diary of events has survived for almost 400 years, and is presently in the Franciscan House of Studies, Dublin.

It was first translated by Fr Paul Walsh in 1916, and a modern edition was published by Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich and Padraig de Barra in 1972.

The Ulster earls visited Pope Paul V in his summer residence at Quirinale Palace on the anniversary of his coronation, and attended the celebratory mass with him in St Peter's basilica.