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O'Neill, Flaherty, Lord of Aileach, on the shores of Lough Swilly, was the first prominent member of the O'Neill family whose name appears in history, ruling his territory from 1004 to 1036. O'Donovan, cited by O'Mahony, says: "The Ui Neill, or the descendants of the monarch Niall of the Nine Hostages, were divided into two great branches, namely, the southern and northern. The southern Ui Neill were kings of Meath, and many of them monarchs of Ireland. The northern Ui Neill, of which there were two great branches, namely, the race of Eogan, princes of Tyrone, and the race of Conel, princes of Tirconnell, also furnished many monarchs of Ireland; but the descendants of Eogan were the most celebrated of all Milesian clans; of them a great many were kings of Ulster, and sixteen were monarchs of Ireland. The race of Eogan took the name of O'Neill in the 10th century, from Nial Ghmdubh (Black Knee), who was killed in a great battle with the Danes, near Dublin, A.D. 919. The elder branch of the O'Neill took the name of O'Lochlainn, and MacLoughlin, from Lochlainn, one of their ancient chiefs. The O'Neills afterwards recovered the supremacy, and made a distinguished figure in Irish history, down to the 17th century, as princes of Tyrone and kings of Ulster. The O'Neills had their chief seat at Dungannon, and were inaugurated as princes of Tyrone at Tullaghoge palace, between Grange and Donaghenry, in the parish of Desertcreight, barony of Dungannon, where a rude seat of large stones served them as a coronation chair." The Four Masters record fourteen plundering expeditions led by Flaherty into different parts of Ireland, both against his countrymen and the Northmen. He is sometimes called "Flaithbheartach an Trostain" -(Flaherty of the Pilgrim's Staff), from a pilgrimage he made to Rome. He was slain in 1036.

O'Neill, Hugh, Lord of Tyrone, late in the 12th, and early in the 13th centuries, was one of the most determined opponents of the Anglo-Normans in the north of Ireland. In 1198 he attacked them at Larne, and for a time broke their power in the district. Next year, after a temporary success, in conjunction with the "men of Moy-Itha and the men of Oriel," he was defeated at Ballysadare, by the chiefs of Connaught, William de Burgh, and the Anglo-Normans of Limerick. In 1200 he was for a time deposed from his chieftaincy, and Conor O'Loughlen elected in his stead. Eight years afterwards a battle was fought in Inishowen between him and the O'Donnells, "in which," say the Four Masters, "countless numbers were slaughtered on both sides." The combatants subsequently entered into an alliance against such of the Irish or Anglo-Normans as should oppose them. Hugh O'Neill was one of the princes who attended King John in 1210; but the English and Irish annalists are not agreed as to whether he gave in his submission. Next year he and O'Donnell made a descent upon the new settlers on the shores of Lough Erne. In 1212 he burned down the castle of Clones, erected but a few months, and in 1213 destroyed Carrickfergus and " defeated and dreadfully slaughtered the English." In 1215 his wife "Benmee, Queen of Aileach," died. His name does not appear again in the Annals until 1221, when, in conjunction with Hugh de Lacy the younger, he demolished the castle of Coleraine, and spoiled Meath and Leinster, being ineffectually opposed by a hosting of the lords of the Pale. In 1225 he made a like successful expedition against the O'Conors of Connaught. His death in 1230 is thus noticed: "Hugh O'Neill, Lord of Tyrone, . . who had never rendered hostages, pledges, or tribute to English or Irish; who had gained victories over the English, and cut them off with great and frequent slaughter; the plunderer of the English and Irish; a man who had attempted the subjugation of all Ireland - died a natural death, although it was never supposed that he would die in any other way than to fall by the hands of the English."

O'Neill, Niall More, Lord of Tyrone, is mentioned in the Four Masters as leading expeditions against the Anglo- Irish districts in 1374, 1375, 1383, 1384, and 1392. In 1368 he was discomfited by Brian MacMahon in an attack on Oriel - a defeat avenged in 1370. In 1380, with many other chieftains, he paid homage to Edmund Mortimer, Lord-Lieutenant. Under 1387 it is mentioned that he built a house near Armagh (Eamhain Macha, now Navan fort), where he entertained the bards and learned men of Ireland. He died in 1397. A string of high-sounding titles (such as "Destroyer of the English," "Uniter of the Irish," "Exalter of the Church"), is appended to his name by the annalists.

O'Neill, Henry Aimreidh, entitled "The Contentious," by antiphrasis, from his peaceable disposition, was son of Niall Mor, and founder of the Clann-Enri, who in the 14th century settled in and about the present town of Newtownstewart, in the County of Tyrone, where he is still remembered as Henry Ouree. O'Donovan says: "There are more traditions preserved about this Henry Avry O'Neill than any of the later chieftains of that family, excepting, perhaps, Owen Roe and Sir Phelim.”

O'Neill, Owen, Lord of Tyrone from 1432 to 1455, occupies a prominent place in the annals of the north of Ireland, during the first half of the 15th century. He is mentioned so early as 1398. He was engaged in constant expeditions, with varying success, both against the Anglo-Irish, his neighbours, the O'Donnells and MacQuillans, and against rival branches of the O'Neill family. In 1425 he was taken prisoner, and held captive in Dublin for some time. In 1430 and 1444 he appears to have levied contributions on the Pale; but in 1442 he is mentioned as co-operating with the Anglo-Irish in an expedition against the O'Donnells. In an expedition against the Maguires of Fermanagh, in 1435, is said that the inhabitants of the district, flying from his advance, carried their goods across the frozen surface of Lough Erne. Owen was deposed by his son Henry in 1455, and died the following year.

O'Neill, Henry, Lord of Tyrone, son of preceding, flourished in the 15th century. His wars and exploits are often referred to in the Four Masters. In 1431 he was taken prisoner by Naghtan O'Donnell; but he was soon liberated, and they became for a time fast friends. In 1442 his father and he joined the Anglo-Irish, and led an army against the same Naghtan, forcing him to surrender Castlefin and the surrounding territory. For some cause, his father was banished in 1455, and he was inaugurated as The O'Neill at Tullaghoge, in presence of the Archbishop of Armagh, the Maguires, MacMahons, and his own kinsmen. Two years afterwards he led a successful expedition against the O'Donnells. In 1464 the King sent him a present of a chain of gold, and a piece of scarlet cloth. Henry O'Neill died in 1489.

O'Neill, Con Bacagh (the Lame), Earl of Tyrone, was inaugurated as The O'Neill, upon the death of his brother in 1519. He was soon afterwards received into royal favour, upon a resolve taken by Henry VIII. that Ireland should be governed by "sober waies, politique drifts, and amiable perswasions." In 1523 he bore the sword of state before the Lord-Deputy. In 1534, however, he became involved in Silken Thomas's rebellion, and in 1538, buoyed up by hopes of foreign assistance, he joined Manus O'Donnell, and marched upon the Pale, and reviewed his forces at Tara. He next year turned homewards; but was overtaken by Lord Grey, at Ballahoe, in Monaghan, and defeated in a bloody engagement. In January 1542, at Maynooth, he renounced the Pope's supremacy, and Henry VIII. desiring his presence in London, he set sail for England and presented himself at Court on the 24th September. He was created Earl of Tyrone and renounced the name of O'Neill, engaging that he and his heirs should adopt the English dress and language, that he would be obedient to the King's laws, assist the Deputy in his hostings, and not succour any of the King's enemies, traitors, or rebels. His illegitimate son Matthew was created Baron of Dungannon (a title to be afterwards borne by the heirs apparent of Earls of Tyrone), and two of the Maguire family who accompanied him were knighted. "And for his reward we [Henry VIII.] gave unto him a chayne of three score poundes and odde; we payd for his robes and the charges of his creation three score and fyve poundes, tenne shillings, two pens, and we gave him in redy money oon hundreth poundes sterling." Mr. Richey says of his submission to Henry VIII.: "Although Con O'Neill might for himself accept any title from the King of England, he, acting as chief of his tribe, had no shadow of right to take a grant of all their tribal lands to himself; but in their eyes the King's granting was simply a nullity." Before long, however, Con regretted his submission, and is said to have cursed any of his posterity who should learn to speak English, sow wheat, or build castles. In 1551, on the accusation of his son, the Baron of Dungannon, he was taken prisoner and confined in Dublin, whilst his younger sons waged war with the English and with the Baron, and his territories were devastated. Con died of a broken heart in 1559, within the precincts of the Pale. "His death would have been," according to the Four Masters, "a great cause of regret to Kinel Owen, but for his great age and infirmities, and that he left an heir worthy of him, i.e., John." His wife, by whom he had his son Shane, or John, was Alice, daughter of the 8th Earl of Kildare. His son Feardoragh, or Matthew, Baron of Dungannon, who was killed in battle two years before him, was the reputed offspring of Alison, wife of a Dundalk blacksmith.

O'Neill, Shane (John), son of preceding, born about 1500, was from an early age at war with other members of his family. In 1552 he avenged his father's imprisonment by attacking his reputed half- brother, the Baron of Dungannon, and his Anglo-Irish allies, who had already, according to the state papers, "done notable good service" against him. In 1557 he collected a large army and made a raid into Tirconnell, but was defeated by the O'Donnells in Raphoe, near the hill of Binnion. Next year the Baron was killed in an encounter with some of Shane's forces - no warrant for the statement of an eminent writer that "Shane cut his brother's throat." Shane carried off from Dungannon Castle his father's plate and other valuables, together with about £800 in money, determined, according to the chronicler, "to do what he coulde to destroy the pore country." In 1559 the old Earl of Tyrone died, and Shane thereupon, in defiance of the claims of his nephew, son of the Baron of Dungannon, was elected The O'Neill. This placed him in direct opposition to the English crown, which had granted Tyrone to the Baron and his heirs. Mr. Richey says: "The origin of the war with Shane O'Neill was that fruitful cause of mischief, the attempt of the English government to change the chieftaincy of an Irish tribe into an estate in land, and to force it, instead of being elective, to descend according to the rule of the English law of inheritance." The policy both of O'Neill and the Government was from the first tolerably clear. He desired to keep in check the powerful O'Donnells, to draw under his influence the various smaller tribes by whom he was surrounded, and thus to maintain himself as supreme lord in Ulster; whilst the Government sought to prevent the aggrandizement of any particular chief. Soon after assuming the chieftaincy, Shane engaged in a conspiracy of the Geraldines; but the feebleness of the Government prevented active steps being taken against him. In February 1559, the Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, desired a meeting at Dundalk, which Shane declined until Sir Henry consented to be god father to one of his children. The ceremony over, they entered into conference, when Shane boldly gave his reasons for opposing the Government, and the Deputy advised him to rest quiet until the matter was considered by the Queen. Elizabeth and her council decided: "We think most meet, especially for the preferment of the person legitimate in blood, and next for that he is thereof in quiet possession, that the Deputy should allow him to succeed his father;" at the same time the Deputy was authorized "to practise with such other our subjects as be neighbours unto him, by reward or otherwise, by whom ye may most probably reform the said Shane, or otherwise by our force compel him to stand to your order and governance." Shane engaged in a voluminous correspondence relative to a proposed visit to the Queen in London, whilst secret machinations continued on both sides. Elizabeth's representatives privately arranged for a general assault upon him - by the Deputy and the Earl of Kildare on the south, O'Donnell on the north-west, and the Scottish colony of Antrim on the north-east. Suddenly, in May 1560, Shane appeared in Tirconnell, and carried off O'Donnell and his wife, sister of the Earl of Argyle. He imprisoned O'Donnell, and made such successful love to his wife that, through her influence, the Scotch settlers in Antrim, upon whose assistance the English had relied, were brought to his side. The Lord-Lieutenant (the Earl of Sussex) made an ineffectual effort to reduce Shane to obedience; and at the same time that he was laying plans for Shane's assassination, Queen Elizabeth again urged that he should be induced to visit her. After the failure of another expedition under Sussex, a peace was patched up on the 19th October 1561; and on the 6th of January 1562, he made his submission before the Queen. Mr. Froude thus describes his reception: "The council, the peers, the foreign ambassadors, bishops, aldermen, dignitaries of all kinds were present in state, as if at the exhibition of some wild animal of the desert. O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and round him, his hair curling on his back and clipped short below the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning, fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasses, bareheaded and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached beneath their knees, a wolfskin flung across their shoulders, and short, broad battle-axes in their hands." Although in words he made an humble submission, the courtiers rightly described his attitude as that of "O'Neill the great, cousin of St. Patrick, friend of the Queen of England, enemy to all the world besides." After the interview, and in direct violation of his safe conduct, O'Neill was detained in London, and refused confirmation in his tribal lands until he agreed to proceed against his former allies the Scots, not to make war without the consent of the Government, and virtually to abandon all claim of supremacy over the adjoining chiefs. Even these terms he did not secure until he had cajoled and flattered the Queen - deferring to her on all minor points, and even asking that she should choose a wife for him. On 5th May 1562, a proclamation was issued that he was in future to be reputed a good and natural subject. Immediately on his return he invaded Tirconnell, not considering the articles binding, owing to the manner in which they had been forced upon him. Attempts were now made to secure his person: he was invited to a meeting at Dundalk, and was solicited to court Sussex's sister at Dublin. Hostilities were recommenced with little effect on either side; and on 11th September 1563, Elizabeth, sick of the war, concluded another peace, under which he was confirmed in the title of O'Neill. "As an evidence of returning cordiality," says Mr. Richey, "a present of poisoned wine was sent to him by Sussex, which being unskilfully prepared, failed of its due effect, though it brought him and his household to the verge of death." He was now left in peace, virtual ruler of Ulster. He built a castle by Lough Neagh, which he called "Fuath na Gall" (Abomination of the Strangers), and might have retained a splendid principality, but for his insatiable ambition and inability to live with his neighbours. In August 1564 the council approved Shane's desire to attack the Scots. At the same time the Lord-Justice Arnold assured Cecill that he acts with the wild Irish "as with bears and bandogs; so that he sees them fight earnestly and tug each other well, he cares not who has the worse." Constant correspondence went on between Shane and the Government: in April 1565 he writes acknowledging the Queen's great favour to him; in May he announces his defeat of the Scots; in July he sends the Queen a list of his captives; in March 1566 "he would have his parliament robes sent into his country, but he cares not to be made an earl. He never made peace with the Queen but by her own seeking. His ancestors were Kings of Ulster; Ulster was theirs, and Ulster is his, and shall be his... He hath won all by the sword, and by the sword he will keep it." On 25th April 1566, he writes, styling himself "Defender of the Faith," to Charles IX., King of France, for 5,000 well-armed men, to assist in expelling the English from Ireland. In July he entered the English Pale with fire and sword, and a little later he urged John of Desmond to join him against the English. On 17th September the Lord-Deputy, Sidney, marched from Drogheda against O'Neill. He destroyed Shane's house at Benburb, burned the country round Clogher, fortified Derry, and took the castles of Donegal, Ballysnannon, Belleek, and Sligo, which he handed over to the O'Donnells and O'Conors in trust for the Queen. In an encounter between O'Neill and Colonel Randolfe on 23rd November, Shane lost 400 of his men. In December O'Neill sought to make terms with the Queen; and in February 1567 he again wrote to the French King urging him to send an army to assist him to restore and defend the Catholic faith. In May he was defeated near Lifford by the O'Donnells, when, utterly disheartened, he fled to his old enemies, the MacDonnells, at Cushendun. They received him with pretended friendship. A drinking bout and quarrel ensued, and he was killed, with most of his followers, on the 2nd June, His head was spiked on Dublin Castle, and his body was buried in the grounds of the old monastery at Glenarm. Acts were quickly passed for his attainder, and the abolition of the very name of O'Neill. Shane O'Neill was about 67 at the time of his death. The English Council directed the Lord-Deputy "not to forget Shane's wife and family if they do humble themselves." Shane was twice married - to an O'Donnell and a MacCarthy. He left Henry, Con, Art, Hugh, Shane, and two other sons, and a daughter, Alice. His career cannot be better summed up than by the following remark from Mr. Richey's Lectures on Irish History: "Of all the Celtic chiefs of the 16th century none was so feared and hated by the English as Shane O'Neill. English statesmen of his own time accused him of every public crime and private profligacy. The later writers upon Irish affairs have improved upon their predecessors, and in the case of Shane freely sprinkle their pages with epithets not usual in polite literature. `Ruffian' and 'adulterous murdering scoundrel,' are the terms used by Mr. Froude; but it is obvious that a man who excelled in address and diplomacy the ministers of Elizabeth - who wrote such letters as are still preserved in the state papers - for whose destruction the English Government thrice stooped to assassination - could not have been an ordinary man. So thoroughly has Shane's personal character been blackened, that the Irish have never attempted to make him a national hero; and he enjoys the unfortunate position, between the two nationalities, of being defamed by the one, and tacitly repudiated by the other. The peculiar position which he occupies in history is that of the last, if not the only purely Celtic chief, who offered a protracted and almost successful resistance to the national enemy. His better-known successor, Hugh O'Neill, was English by education, associations, and habits, and assumed the character of a Celtic chief as the means of gratifying his ambition; Owen Roe O'Neill was an accomplished Spanish officer, with nothing Irish in him save his origin and family tradition; but Shane was a thorough Celtic chief, not of the traditional type, but such as centuries of prolonged struggle for existence had made the chieftains of his nation. From his earliest days he had passed his life in civil wars and desperate adventures. A price had ever been set upon his head, and his life was constantly threatened by assassins. He knew that his very existence was an insult to the English government; he had great pretensions, and small means to carry them into execution; he was always involved in a net of intrigue and treachery; he had fierce passions, and never had learned to regulate them. No possible charge against him has been omitted; but, though they all contain some element of truth, they are manifestly exaggerated, and generally made by men who were themselves, with less excuse, open to similar imputations. He is a murderer; but he slew rivals set up by the English government, one of whom had already attempted his life; and the accusation is made by those who had themselves no scruple in attempting his assassination. He was bloodthirsty and merciless; but he never perpetrated such cruelties as the contemporary Earls of Desmond and Ormond were guilty of crimes dropped out of sight by English writers. He was false and treacherous; but he only lied and intrigued more skilfully than his English opponents. He had little regard for the sanctity of matrimony, and was profligate in his life; he was not much worse than his own father, or the Burkes of Connaught, and was almost the contemporary of Henry VIII. and Henry IV. He was a drunkard; he indulged in deep carouses, and drank like the Scotch chiefs of the succeeding century. He was a tyrant; the inhabitants of the Pale fled from the English rule to his protection, and his territory, when Sir Henry Sidney penetrated it, is stated to have been 'so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm was like it.' He is described as barbarous in his manners; but he held his own in the Court of Elizabeth."

O'Neill, Turlough Luineach, nephew of Con Bacagh, and the great rival of his cousin, Hugh O'Neill (Earl of Tyrone), was, after Shane's murder in 1567, inaugurated The O'Neill. In 1570 he compassed the death of some of the principal MacSweenys. In 1581 he attacked and humbled the O'Reillys, in retaliation for their having imprisoned some of his cousins. In the month of July of the same year he was engaged in hostilities with the O'Donnells. The Four Masters say: "A furious and desperate battle was fought between them; and the celebrated proverb was verified on this occasion, i.e., 'Lively is each kinsman when fighting against the other.'" In 1585 he went to Dublin to attend the Parliament that assembled on 26th April, but does not appear to have taken his seat, as his name is not on the official list. It was Elizabeth's intention to have created him Earl of Clan O'Neill and Baron of Clogher; but the patent was never perfected. Probably it was at this time that, encumbered with his fashionable English garments, he expressed his discontent to Perrot with good-natured simplicity: "Prithee, my lord, let my chaplain attend me in his Irish mantle; thus shall your English rabble be diverted from my uncouth figure, and laugh at him." In 1588 he defeated his cousin, the Earl of Tyrone, and a large force, at Carricklea, near Strabane. In 1592 he received an Anglo-Irish garrison into his stronghold at Strabane, and engaged in a series of operations against the Earl and his allies. Next year, however, he appears to have dismissed these troops, and made peace with his cousin. He died at Strabane in 1595, and was buried at Ardstraw. He is represented as having been a staunch friend of the bards and brehons. Professor O'Donovan says: "There are still extant several Irish poems addressed to Turlough Luineach, inciting him to shake off the English yoke and become monarch of Ireland like his ancestors... But he was so old when he was made O'Neill that he seems to have then retained little military ardour lo tread in the wake of his ancestors; and he was so much in dread of the sons of Shane the Proud and of Hugh (Earl of Tyrone), that he continued obedient to the Queen."

O'Neill, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, was born about 1540. He was the second son of Matthew, Baron of Dungannon, the reputed son of Con O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone. Hugh's elder brother died in 1562. His claims to the title were disregarded for many years; but great efforts were made to conciliate him to the English interest, and imbue him with English ideas. He was brought over to court by Sidney, and was given a troop in the Queen's service and an annual allowance. He served in the English army in the Irish wars, was present at the Smerwick massacre in 1580, cooperated with Essex in the settlement of Antrim, and the Ulster wars, and was more than once commended for his zeal in the Queen's service. Fynes Moryson says "he was of a meane stature, but a strong body, able to indure labours, watching, and hard fare, being withal industrious and active, valiant, affable, and apt to manage great affairs, and of a high dissembling subtile and profound wit. So as many deemed him borne either for the great good or ill of his countrey." In 1584 he was put in the possession of the southeastern portion of Tyrone, Turlough Luineach being restricted to the north-western. Before long the rival chieftains were engaged in hostilities - Hugh being aided by the English government. In his letters to the Queen he lamented the unwillingness of his countrymen to accept English manners and customs, and mourned over their barbarous preference for Celtic ways. He even desired that effectual steps should be taken to suppress the title of The O'Neill. In the Parliament of 1585 he took his seat as Baron of Dungannon, and ere its termination, was promised the title of Earl of Tyrone, which was confirmed to him by the Queen in 1587. He gave up 240 acres upon the Blackwater for a fort, and renounced all authority over his neighbours. In May 1590 he made suggestions to the Privy Council as to the affairs of Ulster, and expressed his desire to have it made shire ground, being anxious that his people should adopt English tenure and English laws and dress. He promised that he would "neither receive or maintain any Popish priest, monk, or friar, or any proclaimed traitor." On the other hand, he was studiously friendly to the crews of some vessels of the Spanish Armada wrecked on the coast of Ulster; he harboured Hugh Roe O'Donnell after his escape from Dublin Castle; and constantly augmented the number of his trained retainers, by passing them rapidly through the small troop he was permitted to keep up in the Queen's pay. In 1591 he was again engaged in active hostilities against Turlough, whereupon the Deputy, Fitzwilliam, summoned him to a conference at Dundalk in June, and was able to report to the Queen: "In the quarrel between the Earl of Tyrone and Sir Turlough O'Neill it was complained that the Earl was altogether in fault; but upon examination .. it fell out that Sir Tir was therein for to blame. I and the council have so ended these causes as they are both returned home with good contentment, and have given both their consents to have Tirone reduced to shire ground, and to accept of a sheriff." After the death of his second wife, daughter of MacManus O'Donnell, Hugh won the heart of a beautiful English girl, sister of Marshal Bagnall. The Marshal opposed the match, and removed her from Newry to Dublin. Thither O'Neill followed. She accompanied him from the house of her sister, where she had been placed, to the residence of a friend at Drumcondra, and on 3rd August 1591 they were married by the Protestant Bishop of Meath, Thomas Jones. (The Countess died in January 1596, some years before the last scenes of the contests between her brother and her husband.) In June 1593 Sir Turlough abandoned the contest with Hugh O'Neill, and upon being secured certain lands, and an income for life, agreed that the Earl should stand undisputed master of Tyrone. This position as head of the O'Neill family made him formidable in the eyes of Elizabeth's advisers. Day by day he brought the surrounding clans more and more under his influence. He was soon involved in difficulties with the Lord-Deputy, and with Sir Henry Bagnall regarding the payment of his wife's dowry. The Maguires and O'Donnells were at this time in open rebellion. Hugh O'Neill last served the Government in a skirmish against Maguire, in which he was wounded in the thigh. In August 1594 a new Lord-Deputy, Sir William Russell, arrived. O'Neill, after a long absence from Court, suddenly appeared in Dublin, and, according to Moryson, “promised al humble obedience to the Queene, as well before the state at Dublin, in his own person, as to the Lords in England by his letters; and making his most humble submission to her Majesty, besought to be restored to her former grace, from which he had fallen by the lying slander of his enemies." Against the advice of Marshal Bagnall, his apology was half-accepted, and he was permitted to return home. Elizabeth was much incensed that a man so strongly suspected should be permitted to escape: "Our commandments to you in private for his stay ought otherwise have guided you." The O'Neill war, which lasted about eight years, until March 1603, may now be said to have commenced. The contest between Protestantism and Catholicism, which then convulsed the Continent, had doubtless much to do in creating animosity between O'Neill and the Government; but the principal causes of the war were the incompatibility of his palatine rights with the settled Anglo-Irish government, and the desire of the chieftains to guard themselves against the greed and rapacity of adventurers, eager for land, who then swarmed in Ireland. Mr. Richey inclines to the opinion that Hugh O'Neill rather drifted into the war than entered upon it with a preconceived purpose. When it was once inevitable, he acted with the greatest prudence towards his neighbours, welding them into a confederacy of those who had suffered wrongs at the hands of the Government. He assumed the leadership rather than asserted the mastery. In the subsequent hostilities Hugh Roe O'Donnell, to whom he had bound himself by the strongest ties of friendship, was his ablest colleague. The entire force the Ulster chiefs could put into the field was some 15,000 foot and 2,200 horse - for the most part irregular levies which it was all but impossible to keep together for any length of time. The entire English force in Ireland at the commencement of the war was 4,040 foot and 657 horse; but they were quickly reinforced, and the Lord-Deputy could always count on efficient aid from the Earl of Ormond and other Irish allies. The Desmond war had ended in 1585; and Hugh O'Neill was not joined by the Sugan Earl of Desmond until 1598. O'Neill's first move was to storm and demolish the fortress of Portmore on the Blackwater. With the Maguires and MacMahons he besieged Monaghan. O'Donnell invaded Connaught in March and April, plundered the recent English settlements, and destroyed several castles. Sir John and Sir Thomas Norris marched north with a force of some 3,000 men; but could do little more than strengthen the English garrison at Armagh. Their attempt to revictual the place was defeated by O'Neill at Clontibret, a few miles from Monaghan, where the Norrises were both wounded, and obliged to retreat to Newry with a loss of 600 men. This check did not prevent their soon afterwards relieving the English garrison in Monaghan. Before one of these engagements, in sight of both armies, O'Neill engaged and slew in single combat one Sedgrave, an Anglo-Irish knight, who had come forward to challenge him. O'Neill was now proclaimed a traitor and a bastard - "that vile and base traitor raised out of the dust" by the Queen. On Sir Turlough O'Neill's death in 1595, he assumed the title of The O'Neill, in addition to that of Earl of Tyrone. In September he wrote to the King of Spain soliciting aid, asserting that the only hope of reestablishing the Catholic religion lay with him, and saying that with 2,000 or 3,000 troops he and his friends hoped to restore the faith of the Church, and secure the Spanish king a new kingdom. "To Don Carolo he wrote that, with the aid of 3,000 soldiers the faith might be established within one year in Ireland, the heretics would disappear, and no other sovereign would be recognized save the King-Catholic." Excepting some trifling supplies in arms and money, and a few troops, the assistance promised by Philip did not arrive for five years' too late to effect anything. In January 1596 an armistice was arranged between the Government and O'Neill, who was requested to set forth his offers and demands. If these should, be acceptable to her Majesty, the Council assured him of her gracious pardon for his life, lands, and goods, and the same for his confederates. On the 20th January Sir Henry Wallop and Sir Robert Gardner met Hugh O'Neill and Hugh Roe O'Donnell "a mile out of Dundalk, neither of either side having any other weapons than their swords. The forces of either side stood a quarter of a mile distant from them; and while they parlied, which was on horseback, two horsemen of the Commissioners stood firm in the midway between the Earl's troops and them, and likewise two horsemen of the Earl's was placed between them and her Majesty 's forces. These scout officers were to give warning if any treacherous attempt were made on either side." There was more than one such meeting. Fynes Moryson writes: "Tyrone in this conference complained of the Marshal for his usurped jurisdiction in Ulster, for depriving him of the Queenes favour by slaunders; for intercepting his late letters to the Lord Deputie, and Lord Generall, protesting that he never negotiated with forraine Prince till he was proclaimed traytor. His humble petitions were, that hee and his might be pardoned, and have free exercise of religion granted (which notwithstanding had never before either been punished or inquired after). That the Marshal should pay him one thousand pound for his dead sister's, his wive's portion. That no garrisons nor sheriffes should be in his country. That his troope of fiftie horse in the Queenes pay might be restored to him. That such as had preyed his country might make restitution." O'Donnell complained of invasions of his father's territory, and of an opposing O'Donnell being set up, and of his and Owen O'Toole's long imprisonment. His demands were substantially the same as those made by O'Neill. The conferences were ultimately broken off without definite result. Mr. Richey, in discussing these terms in his Lectures on Irish History, comes to the conclusion that O'Neill's claim of liberty of conscience "was merely a form, to prevent the prosecution of the war, which had been represented to Philip II. as a Catholic crusade, losing altogether its religious character... [It] was put forward in the mildest form, and then silently abandoned... As the negotiations proceeded, O'Neill and O'Donnell assumed the position of protectors of all insurgents against the Queen... The Government, perplexed and exasperated, discovered that Irish affairs were entering into a new phase, and a national league was being formed, which would require the utmost strength of England to subdue." The Government was unprepared for immediate hostilities, and unwilling to yield to the terms required, so that the truce was prolonged. The Commissioners reported to the Deputy: "Had we not considered our weakness and our want of victuals and other necessaries, we would have broken off our treaty rather than endured their insolence." For the next two years it is impossible to describe the state of Ireland as one either of peace or of war. Supplies of arms arrived from Spain, and on one occasion O'Neill forwarded to the Deputy the letter accompanying them. In consequence of operations against his friend 0' Byrne, O'Neill marched against Armagh and forced the garrison to surrender. There was another conference near Dundalk - O'Neill submitted to the Queen's terms, and a pardon was sent over; but when it arrived he would not accept of it. The northern garrisons were in a continual state of blockade; interminable letter writing was carried on between the parties without definite result; and the negotiations were interspersed with occasional fighting, and an abortive raid into Ulster. Under O'Neill's guidance, these operations tended to make good soldiers of the Irish, who were now "growne ready in managing their peeces, and bold to skirmish in bogges and wooddy passages." On 7th June 1598 the last "truce" expired. The northern garrisons were in extreme distress for provisions. Marshal Bagnall, at the head of the flower of the English forces, conveying provisions, arms, and money, occupied Armagh. On the morning of 14th August the Marshal marched out at the head of about 3,500 foot and 300 horse, and attacked O'Neill's intrenched position at "Beal-an-atha-bue" (Yellow Ford) on the Blackwater. O'Neill's forces were about as numerous as Marshal Bagnall's. Hugh Roe O'Donnell held chief command under him, and Hugh Maguire was at the head of the cavalry. After a contest lasting the whole forenoon, the English were utterly defeated. Marshal Bagnall, thirteen officers, and 1,500 soldiers were killed, according to English accounts, and the standards, arms, ammunition, and supplies were captured. The relics of the force escaped by capitulation, and Armagh, with the other northern garrisons, surrendered a few days afterwards. The Irish loss in killed and wounded is put down at 800. Fynes Moryson goes on to say that "the English from their first arrivall in that kingdome never had received so great an overthrow... Thirteene valiant captaines, and 1,500 common souldiers (whereof many were of the old companies which had served in Brittany under Generall Norreys) were slaine... Tyrone was among the Irish celebrated as the deliverer of his country from thraldom, and the combined traytors on all sides were puffed up with intolerable pride. All Ulster was in arms; all Connaught revolted; and the rebels of Leinster swarmed in the English Pale, while the English lay in their garrisons, so far from assailing the rebels, as they rather lived in continuall feare to be surprised by them... And now they raised James FitzThomas, a Geraldine, to be Earle of Desmond [See DESMOND, JAMES, SUGAN EARL].. with condition that, forsooth, he should be vassal to O'Neill. The Mounster rebellion brake out like lightning... May you hold laughter, or will you think that Carthage ever bred such a dissembling foedifragous wretch as Tyrone, when you shall reade that even in the middest of all these garboyles, and whilest in his letters to the King of Spaine he magnified his victories, beseeching him not to believe that he would seeke or take any conditions of peace, and vowing constantly to keepe his faith plighted to that King, yet most impudently he ceased not to entertain the Lord Lieutenant by letters and messages, with offers of submission." Complete as was the victory of the Yellow Ford, O'Neill had neither the resources nor the ability to follow it up. Mr. Richey says: "At this date the whole force of the rebels throughout Ireland was estimated by the Council at no more than 18,368 foot and 2,346 horse, scattered over the whole face of the island, without any line which could be taken up by them for defensive purposes - without unity of action; without commissariat, magazines, or supplies of any kind, except stray cargoes of munitions from Spain; without the most ordinary requisites for carrying on a campaign in a civilized manner. Most of the insurgent force must have been utterly undisciplined, and, for a prolonged campaign, practically useless. Gallowglass and kerne sound formidable, and may have looked so; but as soon as the war in Ireland was carried on, as it was by Lord Mountjoy, such irregular levies merely insured the defeat of their party... His [O'Neill's] only hope of ultimate success was the arrival of support from Spain; and his constant object was to avoid committing his forces to any decisive engagement, and thus to keep them together as long as possible." The Earl of Essex landed in April 1599, with an army of 20,000 foot and 2,000 horse, sufficient, as Queen Elizabeth and her advisers believed, to crush O'Neill. Essex's forces were wasted in his southern campaign, and his expedition against O'Neill resulted only in a personal interview at Aclint on the Lagan, on 7th August. They met half way in the river (the water reaching to their saddle-girths), and held a private conference of nearly an hour, at which it is supposed that O'Neill, who possessed profound insight into character, made an impression on his adversary by no means to the advantage of English interests. O'Neill is believed to have demanded the free exercise of the Catholic religion; that the principal officers of state and the judges should be natives of Ireland; that half the army should be Irish; and that he, O'Donnell, the Earl of Desmond, Maguire, and his associates should freely enjoy the lands pertaining to their respective tribes. On the 8th September, a truce until the 1st of May following was agreed upon, terminable by a fortnight's notice on either side. Elizabeth was indignant at such an inglorious termination of the expedition. In January 1600 Hugh O'Neill, with a force of nearly 3,000 men, made a foray into Munster, ravaged the territories of his countrymen in alliance with the English, and strengthened his position by fresh alliances. He turned aside to visit Holy Cross Abbey, upon which he bestowed many gifts. At Cashel he was joined by the Sugan Earl of Desmond, and at Inishcarra, near Cork, received the homage of the MacCarthys, O'Donoghoes, O'Donovans, O'Sullivans, and O'Mahonys. The prestige thus gained was dearly purchased by the death, in a skirmish, of Hugh Maguire, one of his ablest lieutenants. The appointment of Sir George Carew as President of Munster, and the arrival of Lord Mount joy with reinforcements, induced O'Neill to retire to Ulster. In May Matthew de Oviedo, who had been named Archbishop of Dublin, arrived as envoy to O'Neill, bringing from Clement VIII. indulgences to all those who had fought for the Catholic faith in Ireland, and to O'Neill himself a crown of peacock's feathers, probably similar to that sent by a former Pontiff to John on his being nominated King of Ireland. Lord Mountjoy and Sir George Carew now vigorously set about the reduction of the south, whilst Sir Henry Docwra established himself at Culmore on Lough Foyle, and opened up communications with Art O'Neill, Niall Garv O'Donnell, O'Dogherty of Inishowen, and other chieftains who repudiated O'Neill's authority. No stronger evidence of the inherent weakness of the northern chieftains can be adduced than the fact that a force of 1,938 English and 702 Irish auxiliaries (whereof 388 were unarmed and 315 were left sick at Dundalk) was considered sufficient in September 1600 to make a hosting into Tyrone. Early in 1601 Tyrone was wasted by Mountjoy, who offered £1,000 for O'Neill's head, and plotted unsuccessfully for his assassination. The Sugan Earl and Florence MacCarthy were captured and sent to the Tower. On the other hand, O'Donnell obtained several trifling successes in Ulster and Connaught. Lord Mount joy abandoned the old system of marching in force across the country, dispersing the insurgents merely to rally again, and occupied various posts in the disturbed districts, whence he was able to send out flying columns. At Benburb, on 16th July 1601, the Lord-Deputy, with a loss of but five English, defeated a party of Hugh O'Neill's followers, killing his secretary and 200 of his kerns. Of their Irish auxiliaries the English lost twenty-six killed and seventy-five wounded, concerning whom Fynes Moryson writes: "Those Irish being such as had been rebels, and were like upon the least discontent to turne rebels, and such as were kept in pay rather to keepe them from taking part with the rebels, then any service they could doe us, the death of those unpeaceable swordmen, though falling on our side, yet was rather gaine then losse to the commonwealth." On the 23rd September 1601 a Spanish fleet, conveying 4,000 men and a quantity of arms and stores, under Don Juan d'Aguila, entered Kinsale harbour. D'Aguila occupied the town and defences, sent back his transports for reinforcements, and communicated with O'Neill. Lord Mountjoy and Sir George Carew, with a force of 2,000 Irish and 1,000 English, immediately invested Kinsale, while their fleet blockaded the harbour. Reinforcements were hastened from England, and before long there were 11,800 foot and 857 horse before the town. Hugh O'Neill allowed three months to elapse before he appeared at Belgoley, a hill north of Kinsale, a mile from the Anglo- Irish camp. Both he and O'Donnell had wasted much time on the way south in plundering and burning the districts under Anglo-Irish rule and influence. Mountjoy's forces had by that time been reduced by death and sickness, and the necessity of occupying minor posts, to 6,587. O'Neill had under his command about 6,000 foot and 500 horse, including O'Donnell's division of 2,500, and 300 Spaniards, who had been landed at Castlehaven. If he had held this large force in hand, and cut off the supplies of Mount joy's army, there is little doubt but that he might have raised the siege, and effected a junction with the Spaniards; but he allowed himself to be urged into action by messages from D'Aguila, and by the precipitancy of O'Donnell, and on the night of the 23rd and 24th December (o.s.), having arranged beforehand with the Spaniards, he made an attack upon the entrenchments of the besiegers. Mountjoy had received private information of the intended movement, and was on the alert. The night was dark, broken by frequent flashes of lightning. Captain Tyrrell led the vanguard, O'Neill the centre, O'Donnell the rear. The guides missed their course, and when they reached the entrenchments at dawn of day they found the English army under arms, the cavalry mounted and in advance, and all ready to receive them. As O'Neill endeavoured to bring his division into some order, the English cavalry poured down upon him. For an hour his troops struggled to maintain their ground. There was fearful confusion and carnage. The Spaniards made a gallant stand; their leader was taken, and most of them were cut to pieces. O'Donnell's division came at length into the field, and repulsed a wing of the English cavalry; but the panic of the Irish became general, and ended in utter rout. Mount joy's loss was comparatively small. Fynes Moryson computes O'Neill's at 14 officers and 1,995 men killed, and 76 wounded. "After the battlle," says the same writer, "the Lord Deputy, in the middest of the dead bodies, caused thanks to be given to God for this victory." The Four Masters tell us that O'Neill and O'Donnell camped that night at Inishannon - "There prevailed much reproach on reproach, moaning and dejection, melancholy and anguish, in every quarter throughout the camp." The Spanish force capitulated on 2nd January 1602. O'Donnell immediately sailed for Spain in the hope of procuring additional assistance, and O'Neill returned with his followers to Tyrone. Following up the defeated Earl on his retreat north from Kinsale, Lord Mountjoy broke to pieces the stone at Tullaghoge, upon which, for centuries, the O'Neills had been inaugurated. The war was practically at an end, although O'Neill held out for another year. The state of Ulster was approximating to that of Munster after the Desmond war: "No spectacle was more frequent in the ditches of townes, and especiallie in wasted countries, then to see multitudes of these pooer people dead, with their mouths all coloured greene by eating nettles, docks, and all things they could rend up above ground. These and very many like lamentable effects followed their rebellion." If O'Neill could not continue the war, the English Government was utterly sick of it. Within four years it had cost Elizabeth, " besides great concordatums, great charge of munitions, and other great extraordinaries," in money alone £1,198,718, an enormous sum for those days. On the 20th March the Lord Deputy wrote to the Secretary of State: "Believe me, that I have omitted nothing, both by power and policy, to mine him, and utterly to cut him off, and if by either I may procure his head, before I have engaged her royall word for his safety, I doe protest I will doe it, and much more be ready to possess myself of his person, if by only promise of life, or by any other means, whereby I shal not directly scandal the maiesty of publike faith." On 30th March 1603 Hugh O'Neill met the Lord- Deputy and members of his Council at Mellifont, near Drogheda, and made submission upon his knees - craving pardon for past offences, renouncing and abjuring all foreign powers, especially the King of Spain, resigning his lands and seigniorial rights, and promising to use his best endeavours for "the abolishing of all barbarous customes," and "the cleering of difficult passages and places, which are the nurseries of rebellion." He must have been still a formidable adversary; for immediately following this submission, he was confirmed in his earldom and all his former rights and territories (except small grants to the Queen's allies, Henry Oge O'Neill and Turlough MacHenry, 300 acres for the erection of Charlemont Fort, and 300 for Mountjoy Fort). For some days before this submission the Deputy was aware of Elizabeth's death; when the news was communicated to O'Neill he burst into tears, rightly judging that he might have made even better terms had he known of it before his submission. Hugh O'Neill was received at court in London. "I have lived," wrote Sir John Harrington, an old soldier, "to see that damnable rebel, Tyrone, brought to England, honoured and well liked. O what is there that does not prove the inconstancy of worldly matters? How I did labour for all that knave's destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, eat horse flesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did harass their lives to destroy him; and now doth Tyrone dare us, old commanders, with his presence and protection." The officials and adventurers who had looked forward to the forfeiture of his lands were also disgusted at being baulked of their expected prey. The soldiers of the garrisons in his territories longed to avenge old scores. James was determined to enforce uniformity of religion. "Tyrone," says Mr. Richey, "during all his career, attempted nothing so difficult as to live a loyal subject of the English king. It would be tedious to relate in detail the complications and annoyances in which Tyrone was involved - his lawsuits with O'Cahan and with the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe; the interference in religious matters of the Archbishop of Armagh; the expressions publicly used towards him by the Deputy; the conduct of the English garrisons and sheriffs. Day by day he must have learned, by a continuous course of litigation and insult, that he was a marked man; that every Englishman in Ireland regarded him as an enemy; that at any moment he might find himself involved in a charge of treason, supported by interested or bigoted witnesses, and that his life and fortune were hourly in peril." On 18th of May 1607 an anonymous document (now known to have been written by Lord Howth) was found at the door of the Council Chamber at Dublin Castle. Without naming individuals, it disclosed a "Popish plot"- plans for the assassination of the Lord- Deputy, and a general insurrection, assisted from abroad. Nothing is more improbable than that there was any truth in the statements contained in the document. But the Government was seriously alarmed. Cuconnaught Maguire was then in the Netherlands. The Archduke Albert received private information of the finding of the letter, and the intention of the Government to seize O'Neill and the northern lords. This was communicated by the Archduke to Florence Conroy, and by him to Maguire, who sent a messenger to O'Neill and his friends to put them on their guard, while he set about providing means for their escape. With 7,000 crowns contributed by the Archduke, he purchased at Rouen a vessel of eighty tons, mounting sixteen guns, manned her with marines in disguise, freighted her with a cargo of salt, and sailed for Ireland. On his arrival off the coast of Ulster, Maguire managed to communicate with the Earls of Tyrone and Tirconnell; and in Lough Swilly on 14th September 1607, he embarked them and their families. On board the little vessel were altogether ninety-nine persons, "having little sea-store, and being otherwise miserably accommodated." They set sail at midnight, and after a tempestous passage of twenty days, entered the Seine on 4th October. We are told how on the passage "two poor merlins, with wearied pinions, sought refuge in the rigging of our vessel, and were captured for the noble ladies, who nursed them with tenderest affection." In France they were warmly received by Henry IV., but, upon the representations of the English ambassador, were obliged to pass on to Rome, where they arrived in May 1608. They were welcomed by Pope Paul V., and "amply provided with every requirement befitting people of their condition." The King of Spain settled pensions upon them. The Earl of Tirconnell died in a few weeks; and within two years O'Neill was almost the last of the little band of exiles. He made more than one ineffectual appeal to be permitted to return to Ireland and occupy a portion of his old estates. He became blind; and dying on 20th July 1616, at the age of 76, was buried in the church of San Pietro di Montorio, beside the Earl of Tirconnell and others of his fellow exiles. His tombstone bore the inscription:"D.O.M. HIC. QUIESCUNT UGONIS. PRINCIPIS. O'NEILL. OSSA." To his sister Nuala, weeping over his grave, his bard Mac Ward addressed that noble "Lament," which, translated by Mangan, is known to all Irish readers. The epitaph is no longer to be seen, the stone having probably been reversed in repairing the pavement of the church; but the grave is marked by the tombs of the Tirconnells and of the Baron of Dungannon, beside which his is supposed to have been. The inscriptions upon these last are given in Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. Mr. Richey thus sums up Hugh O'Neill's character: "In his course of conduct he was essentially not a Celt. He possessed none of the enthusiasm or instability of his nation; he did not exhibit the reckless audacity, self-confidence, vanity, and uncivilized craft of Shane; his composed and polite manners, when treating with the English commissioners, were noticed in contradistinction to the violent and excited expressions of his chiefs. He never committed himself by any hasty or ill-considered step, yet he was able, when the occasion required it - as in his attempt to relieve Kinsale - to put his whole fortune at hazard. He was led astray by neither patriotism nor enthusiasm, as his conduct proved repeatedly; he perfectly knew the measure of his power; and - patient, cool, and conciliatory - was admirably adapted to play a losing game; and when he had lost his stake, he exhibited the very un-Irish quality of appreciating existing facts, and having failed in his attempt to make himself not merely The O'Neill, but the ruler of Ireland, acquiesced in his position, and was willing to make the best of circumstances, by sinking back into the position of an English nobleman. He was not a great (but almost a great) man; a most able adventurer, whose reputation has been dwarfed by the small theatre in which he played his part; yet, after every allowance, he was undoubtedly the ablest man whom the Celtic race, since the arrival of the English, has produced." Of O'Neill's widowed Countess, Catherine Magennis, his fourth wife, little is known; she probably died in the Netherlands. His son Con, left behind in Ireland, was educated at Eton as a Protestant, and died in the Tower some time after 1622; Bernard was left at Louvain to be educated by the Franciscans, and either was murdered or committed suicide, 16th August 1617; Henry commanded a regiment in the Spanish service, and died some time before 1626, when the earldom devolved upon John, who also served Spain, and survived until about 1641. By his death Hugh O'Neill's line became extinct. Hugh's daughter Alice, born in 1583, married Sir Randal MacDonnell (1st Earl of Antrim). She is described as "of good cheerful aspect, freckled, not tall, but strong, well set, and acquainted with the English tongue." At a parliament held in Dublin in 1613, the Earls of Tyrone and Tirconnell and their companions in flight were attainted, and their vast estates, some 511,465 acres, escheated; 209,800 were made over to the London Companies and to "servitors and natives," and the rest was variously appropriated. An interesting disquisition on the results of the treatment of O'Neill and the Ulster chiefs generally, and the policy of the Government, will be found in the tenth of Mr. Richey's Lectures on Irish History, 2nd Series. The Rev. C. P. Meehan's Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell contains minute particulars of the lives of Hugh O'Neill, his family, and friends, from his submission at Mellifont to his death.

O'Neill, Sir Felim, one of the most prominent actors in the inception of the War of 1641-'52, fourth in descent from a younger brother of Con Bacagh O'Neill, was born in 1604. Carte gives the following account of him: "Sir Phelim O'Neile of Kinard, in the County of Tyrone, had a very good estate in that and the adjoining county of Ardmagh, and was the most considerable person of his name in Ireland. His grandfather, Sir Henry O'Neile, had deserved well of the Crown; and by a patent under the Great Seal of Ireland, dated 12th June 1605, had a grant made him of the whole and entire territory called Henry Gage's country. Sir Henry was slain in the King's service on June 20th 1608, in an action against Sir Cahir O'Dogharty, who had risen in rebellion in Ulster. By an inquisition taken before Sir Robert Jacob, on March 30th 1609, it was found that Sir Phelim was next heir to his grandfather, and then five years and an half old. After he came of age, he was desirous of a new grant in which all the lands mentioned in Sir Henry's patent in general terms, should be specially named; and accordingly, upon a report of the King's council, on May 6th 1629, a new patent was ordered, vesting in him all his grandfather's estate in the manner and form he desired. Sir Phelim was a person of very mean natural parts, and improved them very little in his English education, whilst he was a student at Lincoln's-inn; during which time he had professed himself a Protestant, but changed after, if not before, his return into Ireland; and then entering upon his estate before he had discretion enough to manage it, or to conduct himself, ran into all the follies and extravagances of youth; and having thereby contracted an heavy debt, and mortgaged in a manner all his estate, was the more liable to receive those impressions, and engage in those measures which the other conspirators suggested to him. Old Tyrone had died A.D. 1616, and his son had no children; so that Sir Phelim, as the nearest to them in blood; and the greatest in interest among the O'Neiles, saw himself in a fair way of being set up as the head of that family, and of succeeding to those vast possessions, and that absolute power which the O'Neiles had been used to enjoy in Ulster." In 1641 lie entered warmly into plans for insurrection with Roger More, Lord Maguire, his brother Turlough O'Neill, Sir Con Maginniss, and other persons of distinction in Ireland. [For the motives by which they were actuated, see the notice of the Duke of Ormond, p. 57.] His house was the rendezvous for the meetings of the leaders; and he was one of the five who met in Castle-street, Dublin, in October, to concert measures for the capture of the Castle. Their plans were discovered through the carelessness of a drunken servant, and the leaders fled. Escaping north, Sir Felim seized and garrisoned Charlemont Fort, Dungannon, and the northern fortresses, and soon found himself governor of ten counties. Mr. Prendergast in his Cromwellian Settlement, clears him of the charge of having murdered Lord Caulfeild. "He treated him and his family with great care when he surprised the Fort of Charlemont, on the 23rd October 1641; and there Lord Caulfeild was kept until the 14th of January 1642, when he was sent with an escort to Cloughouter Castle... He was shot in the back by Edmund O'Hugh, a foster brother of Sir Phelim, and thus murdered in the absence and without the knowledge of Sir Phelim. That Sir Phelim had no part in this murder is certain." On the 5th November 1641, at the head of 30,000 men, he established his head-quarters at Newry, declaring that he fought for the King. As warrant for going out into insurrection, he exhibited a document with the Great Seal attached, which he afterwards acknowledged was detached from a patent he found at Charlemont Fort. Great atrocities are, not without reason, charged against his followers. He was twice defeated with considerable loss before the castle of Derrick, in Tyrone. He took Dundalk in November; and about the 1st of January 1642, at the head of a large force, invested Drogheda. The place was defended with extraordinary resolution by Sir Roger Tichborne, and after a siege of about two months, Sir Felim drew off his forces to Dundalk. Thither Sir Roger Tichborne followed, took the town by storm, with the loss of only eighteen men, and obliged his adversary to retreat towards Armagh. There was considerable jealousy between Sir Felim and Owen Roe O'Neill, as rival heads of the family, and although the former commanded in several minor conflicts, after Owen Roe's arrival from the Continent, he did not take a leading part in military operations. He, however, held a prominent place at the council board of the Confederation. Rinuccini's efforts to bring about an understanding between the O'Neills proved successful in 1646. Sir Felim commanded a division of Owen Roe O'Neill's army at Benburb (5th June), where, says Rinuccmi, "everyone slaughtered his adversary, and Sir Phelim O'Neill, who bore himself most bravely, when asked by the colonels for a list of his prisoners, swore that his regiment had not one, as he had ordered his men to kill them all without distinction." In November 1649 he married Lady Jane Gordon, a daughter of the Marquis of Huntley, and widow of Lord Strabane. He had just before relieved her castle of Strabane, attacked by Monro. Three years afterwards, in 1652, he was taken prisoner by Lord Caulfeild, on an island in Lough Roughan, near Dungannon, and was forthwith sent to Dublin. He was tried and convicted in October, and was executed with all the barbarities then inflicted on persons adjudged guilty of high treason. His head wasfixed on the bridge at Dublin, and his quarters were scattered throughout different parts of Ireland. According to Mr. Froude's account, his trial took place at Kilkenny, under General Fleetwood.

O'Neill, Owen Roe, General of the Ulster Irish between 1642 and 1649, son of Art O'Neill, who was brother of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, was born in Ireland about 1599. He was taken to the Continent by his uncle when he fled in 1607, was educated in the Irish Franciscan monastery at Louvain, entered the Spanish army, where he was known as Don Eugenio O'Neill, and before long rose to the rank of colonel. He married Rose O'Dogherty, sister of Sir Cahir. From 13th June to 10th August 1640, with 1,500 foot, chiefly Irish, and 400 horse, he defended Arras against a French force of 25,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry; and, although ultimately obliged to capitulate, was permitted to march out with all the honours of war, and retire to Douay. In April 1642 he was waited upon at Brussels by a deputation from the northern Irish, then in arms. With the cordial assent of Urban VIII., and by the advice of Luke Wadding, he accepted their offer of the command of the Ulster forces, and with money sent him by the Pope, purchased a frigate, the St. Francis, and freighted her with arms and munitions. He sailed from Dunkirk about 18th June, with his sons Henry, Bryan, and Con; O'Cahan, Bryan O'Byrne, Owen O'Dogherty, Gerald FitzGerald, and many of his countrymen anxious to join in the struggle. Eluding the vigilance of English cruisers, specially despatched to intercept her, the St. Francis dropped anchor at Castledoe, in Donegal, towards the end of July. Sir Felim O'Neill, with 1,500 men, escorted him to Charlemont, where he was invested with supreme command in Ulster. The English general, Leslie, wrote that he was sorry a person of his experience and reputation abroad should come to Ireland to second so bad a cause, and earnestly besought him to return whence he came, whereupon O'Neill replied that he "had more reason to come to relieve the deplorable state of his country, than Leslie had to march at the head of an army to England against his own King." Twelve more sail afterwards arrived, and landed contingents of officers and men trained in the continental wars, and stores of arms and ammunition contributed by different European powers. The Confederation of Kilkenny was constituted on 24th October 1642. Eleven spiritual and fourteen temporal peers, with 226 commoners, representing the Catholic population of Ireland, assembled, and swore to observe true allegiance to King Charles, to sustain an Irish Parliament, to maintain the free exercise of the Roman Catholic faith, and to obey the laws made by the Supreme Council then elected. A declaration of rights was issued, a government constituted, an army organized, a mint established, a great seal cut, and ambassadors were sent to foreign states. O'Neill was appointed to command the Ulster forces, Thomas Preston those of Leinster, Gerald Barry in Munster, John Burke in Connaught. It would be impossible clearly to follow O'Neill's course through the troubled politics of the next few years in Ireland. There were the parties of the Confederation and of the English Parliament; there was Ormond's party, and the party of Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio; there was General Monro's Scotch Presbyterian party, the party of Inchiquin, and the party of the Old Irish. These factions were much split up, and at times formed the most unlooked-for alliances. Union and patriotism were lamentably wanting. The name of Owen Roe O'Neill stands out more clearly than that of any other of the actors in the drama, as one sincerely anxious to sink personal considerations and serve his country and religion. Only the main points in his career can be noticed. He spent the winter of 1642 in disciplining his levies of Irish kerns, who were thus described by Rinuccini: " The soldiers of Ulster, and, in some parts, those of Connaught, naturally accustomed to suffering, and habituated to the frosts of that northern climate, have few wishes and few wants. Caring but little for bread, they live upon shamrock and butter. Their drink is milk, and, as a great luxury, usquebagh. Provided they have shoes and a few utensils, a woollen cloak serves for their covering - more zealously careful of their sword and musket than of their personal comfort. They seldom touch money, and therefore complain but little about it." In May 1643 he successfully repulsed General Monro's attempt to surprise Charlemont. He was deeply mortified at the Supreme Council preferring Lord Castlehaven to him for the chief command of the armies of the Confederation. On 24th June he joined Preston near Mullingar. Their forces numbered about 12,000 men. They reaped the corn in Meath, and took the castles of Killelan, Balrath, Ballybeg, Bective, Balsoon, and Ardsallagh, and defeated Lord Moore at Portlester. On 15th September O'Neill's progress was stayed by a cessation of arms agreed upon between the Marquis of Ormond and the Confederates. More than a year was passed in negotiations - the Anglo-Irish Confederates were inclined to temporize, whilst the Old Irish, headed by Rinuccini and supported by O'Neill, opposed all proposals of permanent peace that would not include complete toleration for the Catholics. In November the Supreme Council commanded him to join his forces to those of Castlehaven, and attack Monro in Munster. The operations during 1644 and 1645 resolved themselves into a series of skirmishes which, while they did not accomplish their end of driving Monro out of Ireland, tended to discipline the Irish troops. Towards the close of 1645 O'Neill quarrelled with Castlehaven, charging him with supineness or cowardice in the operations of the war. Both generals appealed to the Supreme Council, and O'Neill retired to Belturbet, where he established his headquarters until the spring of 1646. He was then summoned to Kilkenny by Rinuccini, who supplied him with a large portion of the arms he had brought from the Continent; and, smoothing over the differences between him and his kinsman, Sir Felim O'Neill, induced the latter to consent to serve under him. By the following May, Owen had an army of 5,000 foot and 500 horse, with which he marched, about 1st June, in the direction of Armagh, to attack Monro. The Scottish general met him with 6,000 infantry and 800 horse, and on the 5th June the battle of Benburb was fought, in which O'Neill was completely victorious. Carte, in his Life of Ormond, thus writes of Monro's defeat: "Sir James Montgomery's regiment was the only one which retired in a body; all the others fled in the utmost confusion, and most of the infantry were cut in pieces. Colonel Conway, after having two horses shot under him, made his escape almost miraculously to the Newry, with Captain Burke and about forty horse. Lord Montgomery was taken prisoner, with about twenty-one officers, and one hundred and fifty common soldiers. There were found three thousand two hundred and forty- three slain on the field of battle, and others were killed next day in the pursuit. O'Neile had only about seventy killed, and two hundred wounded. He took all the Scots' artillery, being four field pieces, with most of their arms, thirty-two colours, their tents and baggage. The booty was very great: one thousand five hundred draft horses being taken, and two months' provisions for the Scotch army - enough to serve the Ulster Irish (an hardy people, used to live on potatoes and butter, and content generally with only milk and shoes) double the time. Monro fled without his wig and coat to Lisnegarvy, and immediately burned Dundrum, deserted Port a Down, Clare, Glanevy, Downepatrick, and other places." One of O'Neill's chaplains carried the news of the victory to Rinuccini at Limerick on the 13th, and presented to him the captured colours at the cathedral with much state. Three days later they were forwarded to Rome, and the Pope shortly afterwards sent O'Neill, as an augury of future victories, the sword of his distinguished uncle, the Earl of Tyrone. After this triumph O'Neill's army dispersed over Monaghan, Cavan, Leitrim, and Longford, until the crops should be ripe, while the wounded were sent to Charlemont, where Sir Felim O'Neill had surgeons for them. The account of the battle posted in the streets of London described "the bloody fight at Black water, on the 5th of June, by the Irish rebels against Major-General Monro, where 5,000 Protestants were put to the sword." A message from Rinuccini again summoned O'Neill south, and his army being increased by deserters from Monro and fresh levies, to 10,000 foot, and twenty-one troops of horse, he marched to Kilkenny, and in conjunction with Preston supported the cause of the Nuncio and those anxious to reject the peace offered by Ormond. O'Neill and Preston then moved towards Dublin, in the hope of wresting the city from Ormond before he could deliver it into the hands of the Parliamentarians. The two generals proceeded by different routes, and pitched their camps between Lucan and Celbridge. Much animosity existed between them. O'Neill distrusted Preston, and Preston was really more anxious to fall on O'Neill than to march on Dublin. A month was wasted in contentious bickerings, and when the news arrived that a large Parliamentary force had been received into the city, O'Neill collected together his troops by cannon shot, crossed the Liffey by a temporary bridge, and retreated to Westmeath, and afterwards to Connaught. On 8th August 1647, Preston was defeated by General Jones near Trim, and the safety of the Supreme Council was left in the hands of O'Neill, who marched from Sligo, and kept Jones shut up in Dublin for four months. At times the citizens could count from their church-towers two hundred Irish watch fires. Throughout 1648 O'Neill adhered to the cause of Rinuccini, who still rejected the peace proposals that did not provide for the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Ireland. Preston and other Confederate generals seceded from the Nuncio, and proclaimed O'Neill a rebel, and Lord Inchiquin, hitherto on the side of the Parliamentarians, joined them - resolved to destroy O'Neill and turn Rinuccini out of Ireland. On 28th May 1648, the Nuncio, from Maryborough, excommunicated the abettors of the peace, and put under interdict all towns that should receive it; 2,000 of Preston's troops thereupon joined O'Neill, and the approach of a force under Inchiquin alone prevented him from sacking Kilkenny. O'Neill then turned aside into Thomond, stormed the castle of Nenagh and the fortresses garrisoned by Inchiquin's soldiery, and occupied a fortified position at Ballaghmore. Rinuccini left Ireland in March 1649, and it became O'Neill's only object to keep his army together, in the hope of Continental assistance. At one time he even entered into a treaty with General Jones, and in return for a herd of 2,000 cattle, raised the siege of Londonderry, where Coote, who held that city for the Parliament, was shut up. After Ormond's defeat at Rathmines, and in the face of Cromwell's arrival, all the principal Irish parties sank their differences and showed willingness to combine against the common enemy. Owen Roe detached 6,000 men to join Ormond, in the vain effort to withstand the Parliamentary army before Wexford, and was himself hastening south, when he was attacked with an old complaint - acute gout - at Londonderry. For some days he was carried in a horse-litter at the head of his army; but at length resigned the command to his nephew Major-General Hugh O'Neill, and getting worse and worse, died at Cloughouter Castle, the residence of his brother-in-law, Philip O'Reilly, 6th November 1649, aged about 50. He was interred in the abbey of Cavan. Carte says, Owen Roe O'Neill was "a man of few words, cautious and phlegmatic in his operations, a great adept in concealing his feelings.. the imitator of Fabius." His widow, Rosa, survived until 1st November 1660. She died at Brussels, and was buried in the convent of the Franciscans at Louvain, where her tomb may still be seen. His son Henry was taken prisoner by Coote at the battle of Scarriffholles [See MACMAHON, HEBER], 21st June 1650, and notwithstanding promise of quarter, was executed in cold blood. His other sons - Bryan, Con, and John (a priest) - ultimately reached the Continent; but no further record remains of them.

O'Neill, Hugh, Major-General, served with distinction in the War of 1641-'52. in the autumn of 1649 he succeeded his uncle, Owen Roe O'Neill, in the command of his army, and took part in some of the minor operations of the ensuing winter. In May 1650, with 1,500 Ulstermen he stubbornly defended Clonmel against Cromwell. He ultimately drew off secretly, after the Parliamentarians had lost some 2,500 before the place. One of Cromwell's officers admitted in a letter that they "found in Clonmel the stoutest enemy this army had ever met in Ireland... There was never so hot a storm of so long a continuance, and so gallantly defended, either in Ireland or England." In the autumn of the same year (1650) he was appointed Governor of Limerick, and for weeks sustained a siege against Ireton and Ludlow. The latter, in his Memoirs, gives a fearful account of the sufferings endured by the inhabitants. Upon one occasion at least, a crowd of famine-stricken wretches, endeavouring to leave the city, were beaten back. Limerick capitulated on the 27th October, on the humiliating condition that O'Neill, the Mayor, the Bishops of Limerick and Emly, Major-General Purcell, and some twelve of the principal inhabitants should be exempted from pardon. As the garrison marched out several dropped dead of the plague. The Bishop of Emly, Major-General Purcell, and others of the exempted persons were executed. Hugh O'Neill, after giving Ireton the keys of the place, and showing him round the fortifications, was condemned to die. But Ireton, resolving to hear him, demanded of him what he had to say for himself. His defence, according to Ludlow, was "That the war had been long on foot before he came over; that he came upon the invitation of his countrymen; that he had always demeaned himself as a fair enemy; and that the ground of his exception from the articles, being his encouraging to hold out, though there was no hope of relief, was not applicable to him, who had always moved them to a timely surrender; as indeed he made it appear; and therefore hoped that he should enjoy the benefit of the articles; in confidence of which he had faithfully delivered up the keys of the town, with all the arms, ammunition, and provisions without imbezzlement, and his own person also, to the Deputy. But the blood formerly shed at Clonmel.. had made such an impression on the Deputy, that his judgment, which was of great weight with the court, moved them a second time to vote him to die; though some of us earnestly opposed it." Ireton having carried his point, a third time remitted the case to the consideration of his officers, reserving his own opinion, and O'Neill's life was spared. That he lived ten years after this, and assumed the title of Earl of Tyrone, appears by a letter from him (dated from Madrid, 27th October 1660) to the Marquis of Ormond, soliciting the restoration of his family to royal favour. This appeal was supported by the English Ambassador, Henry Bennett, in a letter in which he set forth Hugh's lineal succession to the title.

O'Neill, Arthur, a blind harper of "unrivalled skill," one of the last of the Irish bards, died in 1816, aged 89. He was remarkable for his antiquarian knowledge, and is said to have been instrumental in the preservation of many ancient Irish melodies.

O'Neill, Elizabeth (Lady Becher), a celebrated actress, was born in Drogheda in 1791. Her father was manager of a small theatrical company. About 1812, says the Athenaeum, "father and daughter were doing very ill in Dublin, half-starving, while they waited for luck, when it came to the latter all of a sudden. Miss Waldstein, the theatrical heroine of the hour, refused to act unless at an advanced salary. The manager was in despair, when he heard of the priceless pearl that was to be had for nothing. Miss O'Neill was forthwith attached to the Dublin Theatre, where she excited such sensations of delight, that the Irish capital was beside itself. Forthwith, Covent Garden obtained her services. In October 1814, Miss O'Neill made her debut as 'Juliet,' and London acknowledged a new charm. Her grace, sweetness, delicacy, refinement, were things that London playgoers had long been strangers to. In her first season she ran through a line of characters which filled the town with admiration and poor Mrs. Siddons with disgust... She may be said to have united the old stage with the new, She played, as the great Mrs. Barry did, 'Belvidera,' 'Isabella,' `Monimia,' and 'Calista.' She was also the 'Bianca' of Milman's 'Fazio' and the original heroine of Sheil's stilted and now forgotten plays, but plays which included in their caste Young, Charles Kenible, Macready, and Miss O'Neill. Her last season was the last in which Mrs. Siddons acted, that lady returning to the stage for a night, to play `Lady Randolph' for her brother Charles's benefit." In December 1819, after a theatrical career as brief as it was brilliant, she relinquished a profession at which she was said to be making £12,000 a year, and married Mr., afterwards Sir William W. Becher, of Ballygiblin, County of Cork. The statement that after her marriage she was ashamed of her old calling, and never referred to it - ignoring even the passages in plays in which she had been most effective - is probably exaggerated. She died at Ballygiblin, 20th October 1872, aged 81, having survived her husband twenty-two years. In private life she was as remarkable for her benevolence and practical kindness as during her professional career she was for her talents.

O'Reilly, Alexander, Count, a Spanish General, was born at Baltrasna, in the County of Meath, in 1722. He entered the Spanish service as a lieutenant in the Irish Brigade, and served in Italy, where he received a wound which lamed him for life. In 1757 he passed into the Austrian army, and distinguished himself against the Prussians at Hochkirchen, in 1758. The following year he entered the French service and assisted at the battle of Bergen (1759), and the taking of Minden and Corbach. War having broken out between Spain and Portugal, he re-entered the Spanish service, was made a lieutenant-general, and defeated the Portuguese before Chaves, in 1762. The advent of an English army, under Burgoyne, checked the Spanish successes, and the Peace of Paris (February 1763) deprived O'Reilly of active military employment. In 1765 he saved the life of Charles III. in a popular tumult in Madrid. He remodelled the Spanish army, and introduced the German discipline. Promoted to be Field-Marshal, he was sent to Havannah as second in command, and in June 1768 took possession of Louisiana, which had been ceded to Spain by France. On his return he was made Governor of Madrid and Inspector-General of Infantry. His selection for the command of an expedition against Algiers excited some jealousy amongst the Spanish officers, and caused the failure of the enterprise. Charles III. not daring to reinstate him in the government of Madrid, made him Governor of Cadiz and Captain-General of Andalusia. In April 1786 he was deprived of all his employments, and obliged to retire on a small pension. He must, however, have been still wealthy, as in 1790 he paid an Irish gentleman 1,000 guineas for preparing his pedigree. He died near Chinchilla, 23rd March 1794, aged 72.

O'Reilly, Andrew, Count, an Austrian Field-Marshal, was born in Ireland in 1740. When young he entered the Austrian service, and soon distinguished himself. Under Maria Theresa he served in the Seven Years' War, and under Joseph II., in the campaign against the Turks. He was a major when war broke out between Austria and France, in April 1792. He signalized himself at Marchiennes, became a general officer, and served at the battle of Amberg in 1796, and at Ulm the same year. When the French, commanded by Moreau, passed the Rhine at Kehl (April 1797), and routed the Austrians, O'Reilly was wounded and taken prisoner. He was soon exchanged, and filled positions of trust in the Austrian dominions. At Austerlitz (2nd December 1805) he commanded a body of cavalry. In 1809 he served under Archduke Maximilian, and was made Governor of Vienna, which he was compelled to surrender to the French, 12th May 1809, after a short bombardment. The rest of his life was passed in retirement: he died at Vienna in 1832, aged 92.

O'Reilly, Edward, Archbishop of Armagh, was born in Dublin in 1606, and was educated chiefly on the Continent. He entered the Church, acted as Vicar- General of the diocese of Dublin from 1642 to 1648, when he was deprived of his office through the influence of his opponent, Dr. Walsh. After suffering imprisonment for a time, he was driven into banishment. In April 1657 he was consecrated Archbishop of Armagh. The framework of the Catholic Church was then sadly disjointed in Ireland. The clergy of every grade and order had been driven into banishment: and harbouring a priest was punishable with death, and total forfeiture of property; but one bishop remained in Ireland, and for sixteen years Leinster and Munster had no resident Catholic bishops. He was able to visit his diocese only furtively and at long intervals. In June 1666, while attending a conference of the clergy in Dublin, he was arrested, suffered a rigorous imprisonment in England, and was deported to Belgium. The few remaining years of his life were chiefly occupied in looking after the interests of the Irish seminaries on the Continent. He died at Saumur, in France, March 1669, aged 63.

O'Reilly, Edward, author of an Irish- English Dictionary (Dublin, 1817); A Chronological Account of nearly Four Hundred Irish Writers (Dublin, 1820), and other works relating to Ireland, was for some time Assistant-Secretary to the Iberno- Celtic Society. O'Curry, in his Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, points out many inaccuracies in his writings. He deserves a much fuller notice than it is possible to construct out of the information that can be discovered concerning him. He was latterly engaged at a miserably low rate of remuneration in the historical department of the Irish Ordnance Survey, and died in 1829. A new edition of his Dictionary, with a supplement compiled by John O'Donovan, was published in Dublin in 1864.

O'Reilly, Hugh, a barrister, born in the County of Cavan, was Master in Chancery, and Clerk of the Council under James II. in Ireland, and after his removal with that king to France, in 1690, received the honorary appointment of Lord-Chancellor of Ireland. About 1693 he published Ireland's Case briefly Stated; or a Summary Account of the most Remarkable Transactions of the Kingdom since the Reformation. Harris's Ware says: "The author represents matters wholly in the favour of the Irish, and falls foul on King Charles II., whom he severely condemns for his ingratitude to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, who had faithfully served him. Nor does he excuse his master, King James, who was so offended at his free treatment of him, that he took away his small salary, and turned him out of his titular office, the loss of which lay so heavy upon his spirits that he died soon after, about the year 1694. It is said King James restored him to his pension a short time before his death."

Ormond, Countess of, Lady Margaret FitzGerald, daughter of the 8th Earl of Kildare, was married in 1485 to Pierce Butler, afterwards 8th Earl of Ormond. She is described by Stanihurst as "manlike and tall of stature, verie liberall and bountifull, a sure friend, a bitter enimie, hardlie disliking where she fansied, not easlie fansieng where she disliked: the onelie meane at those daies whereby hir husband his countrie was reclaimed from sluttishnesse and slouenrie, to cleane bedding and ciuilitie." She is sometimes styled the "Great Countess of Ormond." Her husband died in 1539, and she survived him three years. Mr. Graves thus writes of her in his History of St. Canice's Cathedral: "Margaret, Countess of Ormonde and Ossory,.. 'the fairest daughter' of the Earl of Kildare, was unquestionably one of the most remarkable women of her age and country... Large as is the place filled by the `Red Earl' in the history of Ireland, it is a singular fact that in the traditions of the peasantry of Kilkenny his existence is utterly forgotten, whilst his consort stands vividly forth as `the Countess,' or oftener as plain 'Mairgread Gearoid,' forming with `Cromwell' and the 'Danes' a triad to whom almost everything marvellous, cunning, or cruel is attributed. She is the traditional builder, as Cromwell is the traditional destroyer, of nearly every castle in the district; and by the peasant's fireside, numberless are the tales told of her power, her wisdom, and - truth compels us to add - her oppressions."

Ormond, Sir James, known as "Black James," illegitimate and only son of the 5th Earl of Ormond, was a valiant but quarrelsome man. In 1492 he was made Lord-Treasurer. In June of the same year a dispute with the Earl of Kildare, resuling in a skirmish, may be said to have commenced the feuds between the Butlers and the FitzGeralds. A striking incident in Sir James's life was his interview with his opponent, the Earl of Kildare, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, in 1512. It was thought the sanctity of the place would ensure decorum; but ere long their retainers came to blows, and several arrows and darts struck the images. [In expiation of this insult to the Church, occurring within the limits of their jurisdiction, the Lord-Mayors of Dublin for many years walked bare-footed through the streets of the city on the anniversary of the tumult.] In the confusion, Sir James took refuge in the chapter-house. Matters were finally adjusted by the Earl of Kildare and Sir James shaking hands through a hole, cut for the purpose, in the chapter-house door. Sir James was killed in a skirmish near Kilkenny, 17th March 1518.

Orr, William, a United Irishman, was born in 1766, at Farranshane, in the Parish and County of Antrim, where his father was a farmer and bleach-green proprietor in comfortable circumstances. William Orr was a member of the Society of United Irishmen, and in 1797 was arraigned, tried, and convicted at Carrickfergus, on the charge of having sworn in a soldier. Although the only witness against him was proved to have perjured himself, and several members of the jury were drunk when they brought in their verdict, he was condemned to die, and his execution was hurried forward with a view to deter others from joining the organization. His speech before sentence contained the words: "I trust that all my virtuous countrymen will bear me in their kind remembrance, and continue true and faithful to each other, as I have been to all of them." He was hanged at Carrickfergus on the 14th October 1797, in his thirty-first year, most of the inhabitants leaving town on the day of execution, to show their detestation of the judicial murder. Orr is described as having been a perfect model of symmetry, strength, and grace - his countenance open, frank, and manly. "Remember Orr," became a watchword during the insurrection; and the "Wake of William Orr," by Drennan, was one of the most popular revolutionary songs.

Ossian, or Oisin, a renowned bard, son of Finn MacCumhaill, was born in Ireland in the 3rd century. The locality of his birth-place, "Cluain Iochtair," has not been identified. Although his name is constantly to be met in the legends of the time, there is very little definitely known concerning him. Eugene O'Curry writes: "The first class [of Fenian poems and tales] is ascribed directly, in ancient manuscripts, to Finn Mac Cumhaill; to his sons Oisin and Fergus Finnbheoill (the eloquent); and to his kinsman Caeilte. .. The poems ascribed upon anything like respectable authority to Finn Mac Cumhaill are few indeed, amounting only to five, as far as I have been able to discover; but these are found in manuscripts of considerable antiquity... The only poems of Oisin with which I am acquainted, that can be positively traced back so far as the 12th century, are two, which are found in the Book of Leinster.,. One of these is valuable as a record of the great battle of Gabhra [Skreen, near Tara], which was fought A.D. [281 or] 284, and in which Oscar, the brave son of Oisin, and Cairbre Lifeachair, the Monarch of Erinn, fell by each others'hands... A perfect and very accurate copy of this poem was published in the year 1854 by.. the Ossianic Society... The second poem of Oisin, preserved in the Book of Leinster, is of much greater extent than the first." (A free metrical translation of the latter, by Dr. Anster, appeared in the University Magazine for 1852.) O'Curry says that but one genuine piece by Fergus remains and one by Cailte MacRonain. Ossian himself fought at Gabhra, where the Fenian power was entirely broken. He is fabled after the battle to have been spirited away to Tir na Og (the land of perpetual youth), and not to have appeared again on earth until the days of St. Patrick. One of the Fenian lays (published with a translation by the Ossianic Society in 1857) - The Lamentation of Oisin after the Fenians - gives an account of his interview with the Saint, his longings for the great pagan past, his grief at the loss of his heroic Fenian companions, and his contempt for Christianity and its professors. In 1760 Dr. James Macpherson, a Scotch writer, published the first of a series of poems purporting to be translations from Ossian, which were enthusiastically received by the public. The question as to whether they were translations from ancient manuscripts, or literary forgeries, has been scarcely yet decided, but the balance of opinion is decidedly against Macpherson. Johnson denounced the poems as impostures, and in our own day O'Curry says: “In no single instance has a genuine Scottish original been found, and that none will ever be found I am very certain."

O'Sullivan Beare, Donnell, Lord of Dunboy, in the County of Cork, was born about 1562. [The O'Sullivans originally occupied a territory in the present County of Tipperary. Dispossessed by the Anglo-Normans, they moved south, and pressed out the weaker tribes in the vicinity of Bantry and Glengarriff.] In 1581 the Four Masters recount Donnell's defeat of a body of native auxiliaries of Captain Zouch, one of Queen Elizabeth's lieutenants; yet in 1593, his uncle, the rightful O'Sullivan Beare, was dispossessed by order of the Irish Council, and he was put in possession of the lands and stronghold of Dunboy, on Bantry Bay. On the arrival of the Spanish fleet under Don Juan d'Aguila,in September 1601, Hugh O'Neill and O'Donnell appointed him to the chief command in the south, "for he was, say the Four Masters, "at this time the best commander among their allies in Munster for wisdom and valour." O'Sullivan gladly received a Spanish garrison into Dunboy; but when Kinsale capitulated in January, and he found that the terms included the surrender of all the Spanish garrisons in the south, he, partly by stratagem and partly by force, repossessed himself of it, and with a garrison of 143 men (chiefly Irish, with a few Spaniards, under his Constable MacGeoghegan), determined to hold it to the last. The place was speedily invested both by land and sea by Carew with a force of some 4,000 men, many of them Irish, under Irish chiefs. Its defence of twenty-one days, in May and June 1602, one of the most interesting episodes in Irish history, is detailed in Pacata Hibernia. Every nerve was strained and every engineering resource was resorted to both by besiegers and besieged. The place was at length taken by assault on 18th June, and the small remnant of the garrison (some fifty men) were mercilessly hanged by the President. MacGeoghegan, the Constable, was despatched in the vault of the castle, as, mortally wounded, he was dragging himself, with a lighted torch in his hand, towards a barrel of gunpowder. A few days before the assault and capture, O'Sullivan had left temporarily to meet a vessel with supplies from Spain. When news reached him of the disaster, he gathered together his followers and entrenched himself in Glengarriff. There he held out for some months in the hopes of Spanish assistance; but his heart failed him on receipt of the news of O'Donnell's death. Winter was upon him; the mountains were covered with snow; his resources were exhausted; and he was cooped up in the glen, with a crowd of helpless people, the aged and infirm, women and children, with only a few hundred fighting men to protect them. He at length resolved to leave his wife and younger children in concealment in the glen, under the care of his foster-brother MacSweeny, and to fight his way northward to Ulster, conveying the women and children, the aged, sick, and wounded of his clan. With 400 fighting men, and 600 non-combatants, he secretly quitted Glengarriff early in January 1603. On the following morning the English found the camp deserted by all but those who were too ill or too severely wounded to be moved - "whose paines and lives by the souldiers were both determined." O'Sullivan and his band passed by way of Ballyvourney, Duhallow, Ardpatrick, Solloghod, Ballynakill, Latteragh, and Loughkeen. The annalists say: "He was not a day or night during this period without a battle, or being vehemently and vindictively pursued; all which he sustained and responded to with manliness and vigour." His principal enemies were Irish chieftains and their followers - anxious to ingratiate themselves with the Government. They stopped two nights to rest in a wood on the banks of the Brosnach, near Portland; and then crossed the Shannon in the face of their enemies, in eleven boats made of osiers covered with the raw hides of their horses. Passing on through Connaught they were attacked at Aughrim by a large party of Anglo-Irish under Sir Thomas Burke and Captain Malby, who were both killed in the engagement that ensued. With varying fortunes - sometimes finding the people friendly and at other times bitterly hostile, they proceeded by Slieve Mhuire, Ballinlough, over the Curlew Hills to Knockvicar, and at length (on 16th January) found an asylum and rest with Brian O'Rourke at his castle of Leitrim. The party of one thousand, who set out from Glengarriff were reduced by famine, fatigue, desertion, and the sword to thirty-five. Amongst the survivors were his brother Dermot, an old man of seventy, the former lord of Dursey Castle, with his delicate wife. His nephew, in his Historiae Catholicae Compendium, gives interesting particulars of this retreat. O'Sullivan remained with O'Rourke for some days; and after various adventures in Ulster, went to England, after the accession of James I., with Hugh O'Neill, Rury and Niall Garv O'Donnell, and other Irish chieftains. Unable to obtain a formal pardon or a restitution of his territory, he secretly rejoined his wife and children, and sailed for Spain in 1604. He was graciously received by Philip III., who made him a Knight of St. James, and Count of Bearhaven, with a pension of three hundred pieces of gold monthly. After living fourteen years in exile, he was assassinated by his servant as he was returning from Mass, 16th July 1618, aged 56. His nephew describes him as of a tall and graceful stature, with handsome features. His son Donnell fell at the siege of Belgrade.

O'Sullivan Beare, Philip, nephew of preceding, son of Dermot O'Sullivan, was born at his father's castle on Dursey Island, late in the 16th century. In February 1602, he was sent to Spain, with some other youths, as hostages for the performance of agreements made between the King and the O'Sullivans. Some time after the fall of Dunboy he was joined by his aged father and mother (who had endured all the horrors of his uncle's retreat), his brother Donald, and his sisters Helen and Nora. He was educated at Compostella, and entered the Spanish navy. All his leisure for some years, even at sea, was devoted to the composition in Latin of historical and polemical works. He says upon one occasion: "I am practising rather with the sword than with the pen. How few excel in one, much less in both; it is so exceedingly difficult to combine the study and composition of history with the actual realities of military life, especially at sea, where, instead of enjoying the calm of a library, men are the sport of the billows, rocked in the wild heavings of the ocean, and often almost engulfed in the abyss." He maintained a memorable discussion with Archbishop Ussher relative to the ancient Irish Church, in which neither of them was very choice in his language. Ussher calls him "as egregious a liar as any (I verily think), that this day breatheth in Christendom;" while O'Sullivan devotes nearly ten chapters to abuse of his opponent. "Ego te vel Ussherinum ursum rudissime et insulsissime uncantem dimitto ne armata bellua cornibus me petas." The work upon which his reputation rests is, Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium (Lisbon, 1621), republished with notes by Dr. Kelly of Maynooth, in 1850. It contains Topography, Pilgrimage to St. Patrick's Purgatory, the English in Ireland from the Anglo-Norman Invasion to 1588, and in Book iv. (the most important), a history of O'Neill's and O'Donnell's wars. D'Arcy McGee says: "He stands before us a simple and easily understood character; frank and betimes choleric, with great faith in his own religion, and great devotion to his country." His Patriciana Decas appeared in 1629, and his Archicornigeromastix, Sive Jacobi Usheri Heresiarchae Confutatio some time later. He also wrote numerous tracts, and the lives of some saints, which do not appear to have been published. Not many years after the publication of his Compendium, he lost nearly all his near relations. His sister Helen embarked for Ireland, and was drowned on the voyage; his father died at the age of 100, and was buried in the Franciscan church at Corunna; his brother Daniel was killed in an engagement with the Turks; and his mother soon followed. There remained but one sister, Leonora, who had taken the veil at an early age; and with her, he tells us, he long mourned for the death of his parents, and of the brother and sister that accompanied them into exile. He died in 1660, as appears by a letter from Father Peter Talbot (afterwards Catholic Archbishop of Dublin) to the Marquis of Ormond, dated from Madrid, the 10th of January 1660. "The Earl of Birhaven," he writes, "is dead, and left one only daughter of twelve years to inherit his titles in Ireland and his goods here, which amount to 100,000 crowns.”

O'Sullivan, Sir John, Colonel in the French service, was born in Ireland early in the 18th century. Intended for the priesthood, he was educated at Paris and Rome. On the sudden death of his father he returned to Ireland; but not being able, owing to the Penal Laws, to hold his parental estate without renouncing his religion, he sold out and emigrated to France. He entered the army, rose rapidly, and was coadjutor of Maillebois in the atrocious suppression of liberty in Corsica in 1739. There and on the Rhine he earned the reputation of an able captain in guerrilla warfare. This probably led to his being chosen to accompany Prince Charles as Adjutant and Quartermaster-General in his descent upon Scotland in 1745. From his landing at Lochnanuagh, on the 5th August 1745, to his escape in a French frigate, on 1st October 1746, Colonel O'Sullivan was one of his most trusted advisers, and the Prince's escape was due in a great measure to his energy and tact. For these services he was knighted by "James III." in 1747. The date of his death is not known. [His son Thomas, an officer in the Irish Brigade, removed to America and entered the British service, which he ultimately exchanged for the Dutch: he died a major at; the Hague in 1824.]

O'Sullivan, Mortimer, D.D., a theological writer, and champion of the Irish Church, was born towards the end of the 18th century. In 1813 he took a scholarship in Trinity College, Dublin. He was the author of numerous works, the principal of which were: Captain Rock Detected (1824), Guide to an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion (1833), Case of the Protestants in Ireland Stated (1836), Theory of Development in Christian Doctrine (1846), Remains of Samuel G Sullivan, D.D. (1851). Dr. O'Sullivan was rector of Killyman until 1849, when he was collated to the prebend of Ballymore. He was the first Head Master of the Royal School of Dungannon. He died 30th April 1859, and was buried at Chapelizod, near Dublin.

O'Sullivan, Samuel, D.D., brother of preceding, was born near Clonmel, about 1790. He became a convert to Protestantism in early life, and for twenty- four years filled the position of Chaplain to the Hibernian School, in Phoenix Park, Dublin. He was a constant contributor to the pages of the Dublin University and Blackwood's Magazine, and the author of a Church Catechism and other works. "His style was formed at an earlier period than that of most of the writers who have of late years addressed the public, and it more often reminds us of Goldsmith in its truth of delineation, and of Swift in its perfect purity of language, than of any one modern author." He died 6th August 1851, and was buried at Chapelizod.

O'Toole, Laurence, Saint, was born, it is said near Castledermot, in 1132. His father, Maurice O'Toole, was a chief of Hy-Muireadhaigh (the southern half of Kildare), and in consequence of a dispute with Dermot MacMurrough, was obliged to deliver Lawrence to him as a hostage. The lad was brutally treated, but was rescued and cared for by the Bishop of Glendalough, under whose influence he determined to enter the Church. He was ordained priest at an early age, and in 1157 was appointed Abbot of Glendalough, where for many years he presided over his secluded community with singular wisdom, and gathered around him many disciples. In 1161 he was appointed Archbishop of Dublin, and was consecrated next year in Christ Church. In 1167 he attended Roderic O'Conor's council at Athboy. After the Anglo-Norman invasion he exerted all his influence to urge his countrymen to united resistance to the common enemy, and in the assault on Dublin, braved every danger-encouraging the defenders, and administering spiritual consolations to the wounded. When all hope of successful resistance was over, he gave in his adhesion to the Anglo-Normans, and in 1172 attended Henry II.'s Synod of Cashel, where many new canons were enacted for the government of the Irish Church. At his instigation Earl Strongbow added a steeple and two chapels to Christ Church Cathedral. With five other Irish prelates, he attended a council at Rome in 1179, a promise having been first exacted from him by Henry II. that he would urge nothing detrimental to the King's interests or policy in Ireland. In 1180 the Archbishop was entrusted with the delivery of the son of Roderic O'Conor to Henry II. as a hostage. He followed the King to Normandy; but taking ill almost immediately after his arrival, died at Eu, on the 14th November 1180. He was buried in the Abbey of Eu, where his relics were preserved until the French Revolution. He was canonized by Honorius III. in 1226. The Saint is described as tall and graceful in figure.

O'Toole, Adam Duff, one of the few persons who have suffered at the stake in Ireland for the expression of religious convictions. The case is thus mentioned by Holinshed, under date 1327: "A gentleman of the familie of the O'Toolies in Leinster, named Adam Duffe, possessed by some wicked spirit of error, denied obstinatelie the incarnation of our Sauior, the trinitie of persons in the vnitie of the Godhead, and the resurrection of the flesh; as for the holie Scripture, he said it was but a fable: the Virgin Marie he affirmed to be a woman of dissolute life, and the apostolike see erroneous. For such assertions he was burnt in Hogging [College] greene, beside Dublin."

Otway, Caesar, Rev., author, was born in the County of Tipperary, in the latter part of the 18th century. He was the author of Sketches in Ireland (1839), Tour in Connaught (1839),and Sketches in Erris (1841). They are written in a kindly and cheerful spirit, with a keen appreciation of the picturesque; and depict a condition of things now almost passed away. The publication of these works drew attention to many beautiful localities previously almost unvisited. Mr. Otway was one of the founders and original conductors of the Dublin Christian Examiner. He assisted Petrie in editing the first volume of the Dublin Penny Journal, and wrote many articles for the University Magazine. The Athenaeum says: "He was the centre of the young literature of the Irish capital, and he laboured to prevent its assuming that sectarian character in the hands of others which unfortunately was too manifest in his own." Mr. Otway died 16th March 1842, aged about 63. His portrait will be found in the University Magazine for October 1839.

Oulton, Walley Chamberlain, the author of some twenty-three pieces, chiefly dramatic, published between 1784 and 1817, was a native of Dublin. His most important writing were,: A History of the Theatres of London, 2 vols. (1796), and The Traveller's Guide, or English Itinerary, 2 vols. (1805). Little is known concerning his life: he appears to have been living in 1820. We are told that "his miscellaneous writings enjoyed considerable repute during a reasonable period of popularity; and on the whole we must repute him to have been a man of taste, judgment, and extensive reading."

Ouseley, Gideon, a distinguished Methodist preacher, was born at Dunmore, in the County of Galway, 24th February 1762. He was second cousin of Sir Gore and Sir William Ouseley, and received much of his education in their company. At first intended for the Church, he was eventually settled by his father on an extensive farm; he married early, and threw himself into the rollicking life of a Connaught squireen. In May 1791, through the ministrations of some Methodist soldiers of the 4th Dragoon Guards at Dunmore, he was converted (much to the amazement of his old associates, and greatly to the joy of his devoted wife). He entered on a career of incessant itinerary preaching, terminated only by his death at an advanced age. Having a perfect command of the Irish language, he preached for the most part in the west and south; but indeed there was scarcely a barony in Ireland in which he did not make converts to Methodism. Charles Graham, William Hamilton, and John Neilson were among his earlier fellow-labourers. Travelling on horseback, they preached in season and out of season-at fairs and markets; in barns and private houses; to workmen in the fields, at the loom, and the scutch-mill. They endured with unfailing good temper and serenity buffetings and insults, stone- throwing, and derision: at times they drew audiences by singing hymns to old Irish tunes. Mr. Ouseley died in Dublin, 14th May 1839, aged 77) and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery. His widow survived him fourteen years. [His younger brother, Sir Ralph, distinguished himself under Lake and Wellington, became a major-general in the army of Portugal, and besides being a British knight, bore four foreign orders and eight medals. He died at Lisbon in 1842, and was buried with his brother in Mount Jerome.] The Life of Gideon Ouseley, by William Arthur, from which these particulars are taken, contains much interesting matter illustrative of the condition of Ireland between 1762 and 1839.

Ouseley, Sir Gore, Bart., diplomatist, was born in Limerick, 24th June 1770. Early in 1787 he visited the United States, and proceeded thence to China and the East Indies, where his amiable manners, abilities, and accomplishments secured him a situation and rapid advancement. He was created a baronet in 1808. In 1810 he was sent as Ambassador Extraordinary to Persia. At Shiraz, in 1811-'12, he protected Henry Martyn, the missionary, who had gone to Persia to revise and complete his Persian translation of the New Testament. He was decorated by the Emperor of Russia in 1819, for his successful efforts to prevent war between Persia and Russia. Sir Gore was a member of the Royal Society and other learned and scientific bodies. He died at Beaconsfield, near London, 18th November 1844, aged 74.

Ouseley, Sir William, a voluminous writer, brother of preceding, was born in Limerick, in 1771. He was knighted in 1800, and in 1810 accompanied his brother, Sir Gore, to Persia, as his private secretary. He wrote several works upon that country: Persian Miscellanies (1795); Oriental Collections, 3 vols. (1797-1800); Ancient History of Persia (1799); Oriental Geography (1804); Travels in Various Countries of the East, 3 vols. (1810-'12). He died in 1842. [His son, Sir William (born in London in 1797, died there 6th March 1866) was attache at Stockholm and at Washington, and wrote Statistics and Political Institutions of the United States (1832), and Views of South America (1852). His other sons, John, Richard, Ralph, and Joseph, rose to high rank in the army, and served chiefly in India.]

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