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Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell

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Rory O'Donnell
Ruaidrí Ó Domhnaill
Earl of Tyrconnell
King of Tyrconnell
Reign10 September 1602 – 4 September 1603
PredecessorHugh Roe O'Donnell
SuccessorTitle abolished
1st Earl of Tyrconnell
Reign4 September 1603 – 14 September 1607
PredecessorTitle created
SuccessorThe 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell
Born1575[1]
Tyrconnell, Ireland
Died30 July 1608(1608-07-30) (aged 32–33)
Rome, Papal States
Burial
San Pietro in Montorio, Rome
SpousesBridget Fitzgerald
IssueThe 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell
Lady Mary Stuart O'Donnell
DynastyO'Donnell
FatherSir Hugh O'Donnell
MotherInion Dubh
ReligionRoman Catholic

Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell (Irish: Ruaidrí Ó Domhnaill, 1d Iarla na Tír Chonaill; 1575 – 30 July 1608), was an Irish Gaelic lord, the last King of Tyrconnell. He was a younger brother of Hugh Roe O'Donnell and became the 1st Earl of Tyrconnell.[2]

Early life

O'Donnell was one of nine known children of Sir Hugh O'Donnell, who reigned as Chief of the Name and Lord of Tyrconnell from 1566 until he abdicated in favour of his eldest son by his second wife, Hugh Roe O'Donnell, in 1592. By this point, the sons of his first wife had been disabled or killed, mostly by his Scottish-born second wife, the Inion Dubh.[a]

After the defeat at Kinsale in December 1601, Rory, as Tanist of Tyrconnell, became acting Chief when his older brother left to seek desperately needed reinforcements from Spain. He led the clan back to Connaught and maintained guerilla warfare until December 1602, when he submitted to Lord Deputy Mountjoy at Athlone.

Head of the clan O'Donnell

In 1602, O'Donnell succeeded his recently deceased brother Hugh as King of Tyrconnell and Chief of the Clan O'Donnell. Having submitted in London to the newly crowned King James I, Rory, under the policy of surrender and regrant was required to renounce his traditional titles and was in return created as Earl of Tyrconnell[1] per letters patent of 4 September 1603, with the subsidiary title Baron of Donegal reserved for his heir apparent. He was further granted the territorial Lordship of Tyrconnell per letters patent of 10 February 1604.

A 1614 Hiberno-Latin history of Donegal Abbey, however, criticized the title of Earl as, "how inferior to that with which the Prince of Tyrconnell used to be acclaimed on the sacred rock of Kilmacrenan!"[3]

Grave of Tyrconnell, Rome.

Flight of the Earls

Main article: Flight of the Earls

There was much fury in Ireland and England that he and Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, had been treated so gingerly after allegedly committing treason (this became known as the Sham Plot), but time was on the side of the English authorities. On 14 September 1607, both Earls set sail from Lough Swilly with their families and followers for eventual exile in Spanish Flanders and Rome. Lord Tyrconnell died in Rome in 1608 and is entombed in San Pietro in Montorio.

Family

Lord Tyrconnell married Bridget, daughter of the 12th Earl of Kildare,[1] by whom he had two children: Hugh and Mary. After his death, Bridget married the 1st Viscount Barnewall (1592–1663), with whom she had five sons and four daughters that survived him.

Lord Tyrconnell's only son, Hugh, was three weeks shy of his first birthday when the Earls sailed from Lough Swilly, and was raised in Louvain, Spanish Flanders. In time he joined the service of the King of Spain, and was killed in action when his ship engaged a French vessel in August or September 1642 and caught fire. He succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell, but left no offspring; the title of Earl would have descended to his first cousin Domhnall Oge's line were it not meanwhile attainted in 1614.

Lord Tyrconnell's youngest child, Mary Stuart O'Donnell, left a more lasting impression on posterity. She was born in England in 1608. After her father's death, King James I of England, the first Stuart King of England, who was James VI of Scotland, gave her the name Stuart, in recognition of their common Stuart ancestry – they were ninth cousins – hence she was known as Mary Stuart O'Donnell. She was descended, through her mother, Bridget née Fitzgerald, from the Stuarts. She was raised by her mother in the Kildare lands in Ireland until she was twelve years old. In 1619, Mary was sent to live with her grandmother, Lady Kildare, in London, where Lady Kildare aimed to educate the girl and make her her heiress. Her mother Bridget meanwhile remarried and had a further nine children.

Family tree

Notes

  1. ^ Sir Hugh MacManus O'Donnell (died c. 1600) had at least nine known children by at least two different women.
    • The eldest was Siobhán, who married the Earl of Tyrone in 1574 and died in January 1591, about the same time that her brother Hugh was escaping from Dublin Castle.
    • The second eldest child, a daughter whose name is unknown, is believed to have married a son of Sir Turlough Luineach O'Neill sometime before or during 1579.
    • Other half-brothers were Donnchadh (Denis), Dómhnall (Donal), and Ruaidhri (Rory), who was killed in 1575. Sir Dómhnall Ó Domhnaill was killed in 1590, but left a son, Dómhnall Óg.
    The following are all believed to be full-blood siblings of Rory O'Donnell and his mother, Inion Dubh" MacDonnell: Nuala, Aodh Ruadh, Maghnus, Mairgheag, Máire and Cathbarr.
    • Nuala married Niall Garve O'Donnell in 1592; when he sided with the English during the Nine Years War, she abandoned him and subsequently joined O'Donnell on the Flight of the Earls with her daughter, Grania.
    • Maghnus and Cathbharr are known to have been dead by September 1608, while a poem written in the same month addresses Mairghead and Máire. Nothing is known of Mairéad beyond this. However, Máire had married Sir Donnell Ó Cathain before 1598 but they divorced and she married Tadgh Ó Ruairc, who died in 1605, leaving her with two sons. She herself died in 1662.
  1. ^ a b c Webb, Alfred. "Rury O'Donnell", A Compendium of Irish Biography, 1878
  2. ^ An apparent original of the letters patent of the Earldom were in the possession of Count Maximilian Karl Lamoral O'Donnell in Austria, (See Ó Domhnaill Abu – O'Donnell Clan Newsletter, no.2, Summer 1985), although that family did not inherit the title, nor the related territorial Lordship of Tyrconnell, the remainders of which were destined elsewhere
  3. ^ Charles Patrick Meehan (1870), The Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, page 15.

References

  • Meehan, Charles Patrick (1870). The Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone (Hugh O'Neill) and Tyrconnel (Rory O'Donel), their flight from Ireland and death in exile (2 ed.). London: James Duffy. OCLC 17958027.
  • O’Donnell, Francis Martin (2018), The O'Donnells of Tyrconnell – A Hidden Legacy, Washington, D.C.: Academica Press LLC, ISBN 978-1-680534740
  • Wealth of Dignity, Poverty of Destiny – The Destitution of a Catholic Princess for her Devotion (The tragic story of Mary, Princess of Tyrconnell, Rory's daughter), by Francis Martin O'Donnell, Knight of Malta, in pages 3–6 of O'Domhnaill Abu, the O'Donnell Clann Newsletter no. 32, published by V. O'Donnell, Inver, County Donegal, Summer 2004 [ISSN 0790-7389].
  • History of Killeen Castle, by Mary Rose Carty, published by Carty/Lynch, Dunsany, County Meath, Ireland, April 1991 (ISBN 0-9517382-0-8) – page 18 refers to Elizabeth O'Donnell as 1st Countess of Fingall.
  • Calendar of State Papers – 1603-4 – James I (item 123, pages 79–80), National Library of Ireland, Dublin.
  • Red Hugh O Donnell's sisters, Siobhan and Nuala, Paul Walsh, in Irish Leaders and Learning, ed. O'Muraile, Dublin, 2003, pp. 326–29.
  • http://www.araltas.com/features/odonnell/

Further reading

Regnal titles
Preceded by King of Tir Conaill
1602–1608 		Vacant
Peerage of Ireland
New creation Earl of Tyrconnell
1602–1608 		Succeeded by


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