lately dreamed of his own capture by O'Donnell and of being carried by monks into their convent. O'Connor Sligo surrendered the castle shortly afterwards and reluctantly joined with the rebels. After the victory, there was a noticeable increase in the rate of desertion by Irish troops from the ranks of Essex's army, and the earl ordered that the surviving troops be divided up as fit only to hold walls. The battle was a classic Gaelic Irish ambush, similar to the battle of Glenmalure in 1580 or the battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598. According to the Annals of the Four Masters, the victory was put down to the intercession of the Blessed Mary, rather than to arms. But Clifford had been overconfident – a trait in him that Essex once warned against – and it is clear that English military commanders were choosing to learn the hard way about the increased effectiveness of Irish rebel forces. The Queen's principal secretary, The Rt Hon. Robert Cecil, M.P., rated this defeat (and the simultaneous defeat of Harrington in Wicklow on 29 May) as the two heaviest blows ever suffered by the English in Ireland, and sought to lay the blame indirectly on Lord Essex. It left O'Donnell and the earl of Tyrone free from any threat from the Connacht side, and rendered a land-based attack through Armagh highly improbable, a factor that weighed with Essex as he marched northward later in the year and entered a truce with Lord Tyrone. In August 1602 the Curlew Pass was the scene of the last victory won by the rebels during the war, when a panicking English force was again routed and suffered significant losses; this time, the rebels were led by Rory O'Donnell (and with him, O'Connor Sligo) who commanded 400 musketeers. There is an impressionistic sculpture by Maurice Harron called "The Gaelic Chieftain", unveiled in 1999, overlooking the N4, but this is not on the site of the battle, which is roughly 2 kilometres south-west of the statue. References Sources James O'Neill, The Nine Years War, 1593-1603: O'Neill, Mountjoy and the military revolution, (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2017). John McCavitt, The Flight of the Earls, Gill & Macmillan, Dublin 2002. Cyril Falls Elizabeth's Irish Wars (1950; reprint London, 1996). . Cyril M. Mattimore, Account of the battle located here Curlew Pass Curlew Pass 1599 History of County Roscommon 1599 in Ireland O'Donnell