From Lough Swilly to Buckingham Palace

In 1603 two dynasties fell.

Elizabeth 1 died childless: the Tudors lost the crown. And Hugh O’Neill surrendered to the English: over a thousand years of Gaelic monarchy ended.

O’Neill died in despair in 1616. But history had not abandoned him.

He left a daughter, Sorcha O’Neill, who married an Irish aristocrat, a Magennis of Iveagh. Ten generations later, one of her descendants became Lady Glamis. In 1900, she had a daughter – Elizabeth Bowes Lyon.

Elizabeth was the mother of Elizabeth Windsor. In 1953, she became Queen of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern ireland.

Elizabeth 11 embodied a dynasty which Elizabeth 1 had been at pains to destroy.

Carson, 2011