'HERO' HUGH WAS TYRANT

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Feb 1, 2004 | by NICOLA TALLANT

SCHOOLCHILDREN around the country hear of him as a great Irish hero who fought to save his people from English rule.

But warlord Hugh O'Neill was really a tyrant landlord whose crippling taxes made his people the poorest in Europe - while he lived it up as a millionaire with a harem of mistresses.

In its new documentary series on historical Ireland, the BBC is set to turn the spotlight on the legendary ruler who allegedly wagered his life to free Ireland from the English.

Instead, it exposes the 16th Century 'hero' as a money-grabbing, cruel master who tried to divide Ireland for his own personal gain.

And it claims when he did go to war against Britain, before the Ulster plantations, he wanted no more than the north and tried to hand the rest of Ireland to Spain.

You Thought You Knew - Ulster Plantations claims that Elizabeth l placed O'Neill in charge of Ulster as he had been brought up in a well-to- do English family.

In 1587 O'Neill was handed the Earldom of Tyrone and allowed to rule over Ulster where the British had failed to make inroads among the strongly gaelic population.

But instead of protecting his people, O'Neill ran Ulster like a mafia boss, turning himself into a wealthy man while the population struggled to keep food on their tables.

"Ordinary Ulster people were either a refugee or a conscript in a never-ending battle. They had no rights and no courts to complain to," says presenter Jim McDowell.

You Thought You Knew - Ulster Plantations is screened on BBC One on February 4.