More than two hundred members of the O'Dochartaig Clan returned from abroad to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, the last Gaelic lord to rebel against English occupation of his lands. The visitors were led to Inishowen by rere-Admiral Pascual O'Dogherty, Madrid, representing the leadership of the clan, a direct descendent of Cahir's father Sir John O'Dogherty

Following Cahir's rebellion, April, 1608, and his death a few months later, on July 5, 1608, at Doon Rock, Kilmacrennam, Donegal, the traditional O'Doherty peninsula of Inishowen, Co. Donegal, was  taken for himself by the chief English administrator in Ireland, the Lord deputy, Arthur Chichester (pictured here).

A friend and protege of the English, Cahir was provoked into rebellion when it became obvious that his beloved territory of Inishowen, Co. Donegal was to be included in the plantation plans for Ulster, and that he and his people would be removed from their traditional lands and forced into destitution or emigration, as had begun to happen elsewhere in Ulster since 1601.

In the summer of 1642 Owen Roe returned to Ireland, to take charge of the Ulster Army in the newly formed independent Irish Confederation. He found the country to be in a wretched condition, even worse than when he left it 37 years previously. He wrote back to Brussels:

 The most famous siege of Europe was the siege of Breda, on the Dutch border, in 1625.   It lasted nine months and was observed,  like a tourist attraction, by Kings and Princes visiting from many lands.  Spinola and his Spanish army were ultimately victorious, with his Irish regiment making a major contribution, and the famous painting by Velazquez shows Spinola receiving the congratulations of his

Rosa and Owen then moved to Brussels and their only child, Henry - Johannes Henricus-  was born in 1614 –( Image 4 is his baptismal record) -  registered on May 22nd in Brussels' second parish at the time, the newly fashionable parish of Notre Dame de la Chapelle, among whose famous residents were the painter Breughal the Elder and Europe's leading soldier, Count Ambrosiano Spinola, Owen's boss in the army. The god parents were "Lord" John O'Neill, the future Earl of Tyrone and "Lady" Juana de Vergas,  a Spanish noble lady, perhaps the wife or ex-wife of Don Juan de Mendoza, Spanish Ambassador to the King of England in  1606. .

The year 2007 marked the 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls from Lough Swilly, Ireland. The commemorations in Ireland of this traumatic event were modest, understated, reluctant, almost as if the Irish authorities are embarrassed by the Flight, and the events surrounding the Flight. These events ushered in the collapse of the Gaelic order, our occupation by a foreign power, the near loss of our culture and language, the beginning of more than three centuries of social and economic deprivation, political oppression and of emigration.