Four hundred years ago today it was all over. For several weeks a Spanish army under Don Juan D'Aquila had been under siege at Kinsale, hopefully awaiting reinforcements in the shape of Hugh O'Donnell and Hugh O'Neill, the Earls of Tyrconnell and Tyrone respectively.
The Ulster chieftains, however, when they eventually arrived after a 300-mile march, were defeated on the outskirts of the town by the Lord Deputy, Lord Mountjoy. Don Juan surrendered shortly afterwards, on December 21st, 1601.
This was not the first occasion on which Spanish help had proved to be a disappointment. In October 1596, 100 ships under Don Martin de Padilla had sailed for Ireland, but were scattered by a violent storm off Finisterre.
The following year, de Padilla tried again, but foul weather obliged him to return to Spain. And even in the case of D'Aquila, of the 35 ships that set out earlier in 1601, only 20 made it to Kinsale; the rest were victims of another storm just south of Ireland.
Many historians have wondered how the Spaniards managed to obtain such favourable terms after their surrender at Kinsale. Don Juan demanded that his forces be allowed to leave "with ensigns flying and their arms in hand" - in short, with all the honours of war and none of the disgrace that would normally have attended a defeated army at that time. And Mountjoy, apparently, readily agreed.
Some believe that perhaps the weather played a part. The winds around these islands as we know are mainly westerly, and the winds in December 1601 blew particularly steadily from this direction. Meanwhile, Mountjoy was running short of victuals. The persistent westerly winds not only precluded speedy relief for him in this respect from Bristol, but were also favourable to any reinforcements for D'Aquila that might be on their way from Spain.
Wisely, Mountjoy did not want to gamble on a change of wind and hence, the theory goes, he agreed to the Spaniards' rather cheeky terms. And as it happened, the winds continued to blow steadily from the west until the end of January.
In a way, the two earls got off rather lightly too. O'Neill submitted to Dublin Castle rule some two years later, and in 1607 he and O'Donnell left Lough Swilly for the Continent. With what seems like another poor attempt at planning, they intended to go to Spain, arrived in France, sought refuge in the Spanish Netherlands, and eventually turned up in Rome. There, however, they were welcomed at the gates by seven cardinals, while back at home the Plantation of Ulster got under way in earnest.