Mary Stuart O'Donnell (Irish: Máire Stíobhartach Ní Dhomhnaill; 1607 - in or after 1639) was an Irish noblewoman.[1]
Biography
Mary was the daughter of Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell and Bridget, daughter of Henry FitzGerald, 12th Earl of Kildare. She was born in England after her father's flight (see Flight of the Earls), and the royal name "Stuart" was given to her by King James I. Her mother Bridget returned to Ireland with Mary in 1609, where they lived on the FitzGerald estates in Kildare until 1619, after which they were summoned to live in England. She was granted a generous dowry by the king and was placed into the care of her grandmother, Lady Kildare.[2]
Mary lived in London for the next few years where Lady Kildare attempted to Anglicise the young girl and proposed to leave Mary her substantial inheritance and to provide a husband for her. Mary objected to the favoured suitor on the grounds that he was an Irishman who had converted to Protestantism; perhaps also because she had formed a previous attachment to Dualtach O'Gallagher. Much to the consternation of her mother's family, she increasingly associated with the young, disaffected Irish Catholics of London. In the summer of 1626, Mary and several friends broke into Gatehouse Prison and freed her half-brother Caffer "Con" O'Donnell and her first cousin, Hugh (Aedh) O'Rourke, who had recently been incarcerated for refusing to revoke their claims over planted land in Ireland.[3] Following this incident her identity was compromised and she was ordered to appear before the royal court. She instead opted to flee London during the latter months of 1626. Dressed in male attire, and wearing a sword, she got clear of London, and after many wanderings arrived in Bristol. She was accompanied by a maid, Anne Baynham, similarly disguised, and by a young "gentilhomme son parent",[2] who was most likely O'Gallagher.[2]
At Bristol her sex was suspected; but, according to a Spanish panegyrist, who likens her to various saints, she bribed a magistrate, offered to fight a duel, and made fierce love to another girl. Two attempts were made to reach Ireland, but the ship was beaten back into the Severn. At last Mary Stuart got off in a Dutch vessel, and was carried, with her two companions, to La Rochelle. She retained her doublet, boots, and sword, and at Poitiers made love to another lady. On her arrival at Brussels in January 1627, Pope Urban VIII wrote a special congratulatory letter; but she soon estranged her elder brother, Hugh, who she had never met before, by continuing to seek adventures in man's clothes and for refusing to marry yet another suitor, John O'Neill, 3rd Earl of Tyrone.[2] Hugh had hoped to allay hostilities between the O'Donnell and O'Neill dynasties in preparation for a planned invasion of Ireland in 1627 by enlisting the help of Archbishop Florence Conry, who arranged for Mary to marry the Earl of Tyrone. Her secret relationship with O'Gallagher was exposed when she became pregnant in 1629 and they fled Brussels in disgrace.
She and O'Gallagher arrived in Rome in 1630 where she was greeted with admiration as the daughter of the late Rory O'Donnell, and was provided a place to live and financial support by the Catholic Church. They married and she gave birth to a boy in Genoa,[1] and in February 1632 wrote to Cardinal Barberini, saying that another child was expected. They later moved to Austria where O'Gallagher rose to the rank of Captain in the Imperial Army in 1635, but was killed that same year fighting in the Thirty Years' War. Her infant son fell ill and died shortly after her husband's passing.[2] Beset by grief and estranged from her family, she travelled Europe once again before eventually settling down in Rome, where she married a poor Irish naval captain in 1639. Nothing more is known of her life after this.
^Concannon believed Siobhán was born c. 1569, and that her mother was Iníon Dubh,[ii] who married Sir Hugh around that time. However, Siobhán married Hugh O'Neill in 1574, making that date of birth unlikely. Casway and Walsh believe Siobhán's mother was Sir Hugh's first wife.[iii][iv]
^In a letter dated 31 January 1591, O'Neill references Siobhán's recent death.[iv]
^Her death date has alternately been given as 1639, 26 April 1640, or sometime after 31 March 1642.[iv]
^Sources disagree on Henry's date of death: 1610,[iii] c. 1620,[xviii] or c. 1626.[vii] It is clear that he died sometime before the publication of Philip O'Sullevan's
Historia Catholica in 1621.[iv]
^ abConcannon, p. 218-219 "Siobhan was probably the eldest of the family, and must have been born not later than 1569." "We know little of Siobhan, who can hardly have been more than one-and- twenty, when she died in 1590."
^ abHill 1873, page 222. "Sir Randal Macdonnell was married about the year 1604 to Ellis or Alice O'Neill, the third daughter of Hugh earl of Tyrone. This lady, who was born in 1583, was in her twenty-first year at the time of her marriage, and was younger than either of her sisters, lady Macmahon or Lady Maginnis. She was older than her brother Hugh, the baron of Dungannon."
^Cokayne 1910. "[The 1st Earl of Antrim] m., 1604, Alice, da. of Hugh (O'Neill), Earl of Tyrone [I], by his 2nd wife, Joanna, da. of Hugh McManus O'Donnell."
^Cokayne 1910. "[The 1st Earl of Antrim] m., 1604, Alice, da. of Hugh (O'Neill), Earl of Tyrone [I], by his 2nd wife, Joanna, da. of Hugh McManus O'Donnell."
^Concannon, p. 218 "The inscription on the tomb in San Pietro in Montorio shows that her eldest child, Hugh, was born in 1585."
^Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 1867, p. 459: "..he died unmarried on the 23rd of September, 1609, aged twenty-four... and was buried in the church of St. Peter's in Montorio..."
^ abRoyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 1867, p. 459
^Ó Domhnaill, Niall; Na Glúnta Rosannacha (1952), page 87
^Annals of the Four Masters: "1590: ...the son of O'Donnell himself, who, being unable to display prowess or defend himself, was slain at Doire-leathan, on one side of the harbour of Telinn, on the 14th of September."
^Annals of the Four Masters: "1602:...O'Donnell should take the disease of his death and the sickness of his dissolution; and, after lying seventeen days on the bed, he died, on the 10th of September, in the house which the King of Spain himself had at that town (Simancas)...""
^ abSilke 2006 "Hugh Albert O'Donnell, born [to Rory and Bridget] about October 1606, was the only son of this marriage, Mary Stuart O'Donnell being born about a year later."
^Bagwell 1895 "About ninety persons sailed with the earls, among whom were Tyrconnel's son Hugh, aged eleven months..."
^Ulwencreutz, Lars (2013), Ulwencreutz's The Royal Families in Europe V, Lulu.com, p. 136, ISBN978-1-304-58135-8 "Hugh O'Donnell, 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell (1606-1642) Prince and Lord of Tryconnell".
^Casway 2009. Casway gives her birthdate as c. 1575
^Concannon, p. 218 "O'Clery tells us that Nuala was already married to Niall Garbh in 1592. This will place her birth-year with some degree of probability about 1577 — not later."
^Annals of the Four Masters: "1608: Niall Garv O'Donnell, with his brothers Hugh Boy and Donnell, and his son, Naghtan, were taken prisoners about the festival of St. John in this year."
^According to the English officials who wrote the Calendar of State Papers, Hugh Roe personally killed Niall Garve's four-year-old son (also his own nephew)
^Concannon, p. 218 "Manus may have been born about 1579 or 1580. He was old enough to play a man's part in the battle in which he met his death at the hands of Niall Garbh (A.D. 1600)"Lughaidh Ó Cléirigh names the sons in the order of their birth: Hugh Roe, Ruairi, Manus and Cathbar.
^O'Donnell, Eunan; Reflection on the Flight of the Earls; Donegal Annual, Bliainiris Dhún na nGall, Journal of the County Donegal Historical Society, No. 58 (2006); pp. 31-44.