Sixty Stern and Terrific Scots

 

To complete the quote "Sixty stern and terrific Scots, with massive broad and heavy-striking swords in their hands,ready to strike and parry".    It describes the men of Shane Ó Neill's Redshank body guard and this piece is about Redshanks.

Redshanks was the name given to Scots mercenary soldiers from the Highlands and Isles who served the Irish lords in the Nine Years War in Ireland.  There were other names too, the English sometimes termed them New Scots.   The Irish simply called them Albanach which is to say Men of Alba.

Redshanks came from most of the Clans of the Scottish West including Clans Campbell and Maclean.  For them Ireland was part of the same linguistic, legal and political continuum that they inhabited at home. They were not strangers in a strange land.

Although there were no hard and fast rules about who signed on with whom there were patterns. Clan Campbell were closely associated with the Ó Donnell and Clan Donald with the Ó Neill.  In that connection I’ll mention in passing Lady Agnes Campbell and her daughter Fionnula McDonald known the Gaels as Iníon Dubh (The Dark Daughter). Both of whom played key roles in the politics and military organisation of the Nine Years War.  I may well come back to them both in a future blog.

Mostly Redshanks hired out by the quarter for wages that made it worthwhile.  At the end of the quarter they could go home with their wages and whatever else they had managed to pick up.  Those who had a taste for the life or were in more urgent economic need might sign on for the whole of the fighting season of two quarters.  They got home as they had arrived on the swift galleys of the Isles.

From the Employers point of view the attractiveness of the Redshanks was threefold; they were rapidly available, their bows brought a needed distance missilery and their armour, axes and attitude made them formidable in melee. As an additional benefit they happily went home when their time was up and so, unlike Irish hired soldiers, didn’t need feeding in the idle months.

The Redshank bow was recurved and it seems Yew or whitewood was favoured.  They were good archers who used the bow in both hunting and war.  At home they generally shot all their arrows and then closed with sword and axe.

The Redshank at the top of the page as painted by Lucas De Heere has occasioned much sartorial conversation.  Is he wearing shorts? Is this a new addition to our knowledge of the Renaissance apparel of the male Gael? I believe not and think he is wearing cannions you can see them below on this chap from 1596.   

The rest of his outfit is entirely conventional.  He wears a short padded aketon, a ‘cotun’ to the Gaels and a plain if brightly coloured plaid or mantle.

If we look at the image of the hunting Highlanders shown above we can immediately see that they look just like their fellow Gaels in Ireland.

Let’s consider arms and armour.  The Redshank was a skilled archer using a recurved bow.  He was also a close fighter mostly using a two-handed sword or axe.  As such he needed protection and this came in the form of a mail shirt and/or aketon and a helmet.  The bascinet or acorn style helmet was most popular. The increasing use of firearms would eventually cause this armour to be discarded but in his heyday an armoured Redshank looked like this image here.