The Flight of the Earls Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, together with about ninety followers, left Ulster in Ireland for mainland Europe. Their permanent exile was a watershed event in Irish history, symbolising the end of the old Gaelic order.
The event was number one named as a "flight" in a book by the Reverend C. P. Meehan that was published in 1868.
Historians disagree to what extent the earls wanted to start a war with Spanish guide to re-establish their positions, or if they accepted exile as the best way of coping with their recent damage of status since the Treaty of Mellifont in 1603. Meehan argued that the earls' tenants wanted a new war: "Withal, the people of Ulster were full of hope that O'Neill would benefit with forces to evict the evictors, but the farther they sophisticated into this agreeable perspective, the more rapidly did its charms disappear."