In September 1607, Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone and Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell set sail from Rathmullan, a village on the shore of Lough Swilly in County Donegal, with ninety of their followers. Their intended destination was Spain, but they disembarked in France and proceeded overland to Italy. They never returned to Ireland. This journey, the Flight of the Earls, marked the final destruction of Ireland's ancient Gaelic aristocracy and paved the way for the Plantation of Ulster.
Following their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, and the suppression of their rebellion in Ulster in 1603, O'Neill and O'Donnell were treated leniently by the victorious English government of Ireland. They were allowed retain their traditional lands and titles. However, in 1605, the new Lord Deputy of Ireland, Arthur Chichester , began to restrict the freedoms of the two earls. Fearing arrest, the two decided to flee to the Continent.
There is a permanent exhibition dedicated to the Flight of the Earls and the subsequent Plantation in Draperstown in Northern Ireland and at the "Flight of the Earls Centre" in the Martello Tower at Rathmullan.
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