Red Hugh tells the story of an historical character, Hugh Roe O’Donnell, a young Irish lord held as a hostage by the English in the 1580s. While it is a gripping adventure by itself, it also gives some idea of the depth and the long history of the “Troubles” that Ireland still suffers today.

While the Spanish Armada founders on the Irish coast, Red Hugh is kidnapped and held as a hostage to ensure his father, a major clan leader, follows the policies that the English want in Ireland. For some four years, he is kept in Dublin Castle, while the Irish clans war, sometimes with the English but more often with each other.

Most of the story tells of his attempts to assert his independence, even in chains, through challenging his captors and maintaining his pride. He tries to escape, is recaptured and has to brood helplessly while he watches great events and injustices unfold around him.

Eventually he escapes to take up the fight again and this is where the book ends its story. An afterword describes how he was largely unsuccessful, beaten by the inter-clan jealousies and battles, and died fairly young in Spain.

Deborah Lisson makes no secret of her sympathies in this portrayal of Irish history. The Irish characters who are not noble heroes are lovable rogues. All the English characters are sly, violent manipulators. Yet it seems from the story that there was just as much, if not more, killing of the Irish by other Irish. For instance, the role of Red Hugh’s mother in raising armies to fight and massacre other Irish clans is alluded to in the story, but never explained.

This is my one misgiving about this book. It would be very easy for young readers to take Lisson’s particular stand as indisputable historical fact rather than a person’s interpretation of one story in the centuries of the “Troubles”. On the other hand, isn’t all history interpretation?

Red Hugh is a very interesting story that builds plenty of sympathy for its main character. It highlights how the tragic history of Ireland, and other modern countries such as Bosnia and Serbia, India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, is still being played out. It does take sides, but that may well be impossible to avoid in these histories.

Other titles by this author:
The Devil's Own (Lothian 2000)

Review by David Beagley

© 1998 David Beagley