Talk:Siege of Smerwick

Giuseppe?

I think it ought to be Sebastiano di San GiuseppE, the other form is meaningless in Italian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.58.195.179 (talk) 14:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Sir Walter Raleigh & Edmund Spenser: allegations by whom?

let's see some refs or it goes, the ODNB supposition for Rayleigh & Spenser is a recent uncited entry, no other biographical db or works including the EBO makes any mention of their involvement in any 'massacre', just that they helped put down an invasion by Spanish and Italian troops. I checked the ONDB entry and the paragraph that suggests Rayleigh oversaw a massacre has recently been added with no source, I have urgently requested information from the ONDB on this.Twobells (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

update: I cannot understand why the infobox reads 'civilian massacre', it was an armed foreign invasion. Also, there are no records of any civilians being massacred unless historical articles are now going to cite 'folk lore'.......Twobells (talk) 19:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean any offense, but you shouldn't expect other people to do all the work ("let's see the refs or it goes"). If you do a search on Google Books for "Siege of Smerwick" and "Smerwick massacre" you'll see that ther ar plenty of sources that could be used in the article. I'll hopefully get round to adding some soon. ~Asarlaí 20:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for joining in, no offense taken, I'll do what I can but I cannot find a single source about either Rayleigh or Spenser participating in any massacre and certainly not of any women or children, the only source I did find was one on ONDB and that was a recent paragraph again with no cite, which is odd.Twobells (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Quite a few sources - actually I would have to go with the word "many" - put Raleigh as the head of one of the bands involved in the massacre and while of course point-of-view issues can be a problem, there are quite a few sources that would be seem to not to have that problem; two quick examples would be John Pope Hennessy's "Sir Walter Raleigh in Ireland" (on Gbooks) and John Campbell's "Naval history of Great Britain [1]. Biographies of Spencer only seem to differ between using the word "probably" or just saying he was at Smerwick; of course as secretary to Grey he would almost certainly not have taken part in any military action; the relevance of Spencer's presence is more to do with his defence of Grey in A view of the present state of Ireland after Grey's death. (In a slightly unrelated note: I must get around to reading Westward Ho!, which had a fictionalised account of proceedings at Smerwick - something I did not know until looking at sources for this article) FlowerpotmaN·(t) 21:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

If Grey hadn't killed the invading force, and the Earl of Desmond's army arrived from the east and attacked him, the prisoners could have joined in or been freed. Grey had no choice. Of course we would like to read that he had arranged ships to drop them all back to Italy, but life was not like that then. These men were outlaws and a possible threat.78.17.39.35 (talk) 15:25, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion: Already An Entry For The Siege

There is already a Wiki entry for the siege at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Desmond_Rebellion#The_1580_Papal_landing_and_the_Smerwick_massacre so I suggest this page goes.Twobells (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Basques

Spanish, Italian and "Basques"...No point separate basques of spaniards at that moment (or even sometimes). Just spanish and Italian...or Philiph II´s troups if you prefer... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.14.202.251 (talk) 10:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The historic source draws a distinction. I'll re-add with source, unless there is a valid objection. RashersTierney (talk) 11:54, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Summary executions, not a "massacre"

Using the word "massacre" is POV, as the prisoners were freelance mercenaries representing no state. Spain and the Holy See had not declared war on Ireland or England. In such a case it was the norm in those times to spare officers (for ransom) and execute everyone else. If an English or Irish freelance force had landed in 1580 at Ostia or Coruna to help a local rebel, and then surrendered, they would have been treated in the same way. It is POV naive and ill-informed to imagine that these were "normal" soldiers who were to be treated as prisoners of war.78.19.208.109 (talk) 09:06, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe so, but I've added a comment by Fr Meehan about the Papal force being mostly pardoned brigands. Their indulgences might have been criminal pardons, or maybe both. At any rate, nobody was going to pay to ship them all the way back to Italy where they weren't wanted! Maybe this explains why the massacre of so many is notable in a sparsely-populated corner of Ireland, but looking at the wider picture they were not going to be missed. The other question is why San Giuseppe had landed but not moved off the peninsula in over a month?78.17.4.89 (talk) 09:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)