Art Óg Mac Murchadha Caomhánach
| Reign: | 1375– January, 1417 | |
| Predecessor: | Art mac Diarmait MacMurrough | |
| Successor: | Donnchadh mac Art MacMurrough | |
| Date of Birth: | 1357 | |
| Place of Birth: | Leinster, Ireland | |
| Wives: | Elizabeth de Veel, &co. | |
| Buried: | St. Mullins, Co. Carlow | |
| Date of Death: | 1417 | |
| Parents: | Art mac Muircheartach MacMurrough and inion Phillip O'Byrne |
Art mac Art MacMurrough-Kavanagh (1357-1417), is generally regarded as the most formidable of the later Kings of Leinster. He revived not only the royal family's prerogatives but their lands and power. During the length of his forty-two year reign he fully lived up to his title, dominating the "Anglo-Norman settlers of Lenister, extracting 'black rent' in Castledermot and New Ross and seeking an annual fee from Dublin. Through his wife, the Anglo-Norman heiress Elizabeth Calf (sic), he claimed the important Barony of Norragh in Co. Kildare" (1).
His dominance of the province and its inhabitants - both Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman - was deemed sufficiently detrimental to the colony that Richard II spent much of the years 1394-1395 sparring with him. While Art did indeed submit to Richard, he renounced this fealty on Richard's departure and made much of his kingdom a death-trap for any invading English or Anglo-Irish forces. He was very much cut of the same cloth as his ancestors Diarmait mac Mail na mBo and Diarmait Mac Murchada.
Later Kings of Leinster
Art is also credited as being the ancestor of "the majority of the Kavanagh septs that proliferated from the fifteenth century" (2), and is the ancestor of the current Chief of the Name, Andrew MacMurrough Kavanagh of Borris House, The MacMurrough (see Chiefs of the Name), the title having passed in unbroken succession since the death of the last de facto King of Leinster in 1632.
Source
- "Annals of the Four Masters; http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100005B/index.html
- "War, Politics and the Irish of Leinster 1156-1606", Emmett O'Byrne, Dublin, 2003.
- "Irish Kings and High Kings", Francis John Bryne, Dublin 1973.
- (1) Susan Foran, in "The Encyclopaedia of Ireland", Dublin 2003, p.679.
- (2) [1]
See also
References
- ^ [http://scripts.ireland.com/ancestor/surname/index.cfm?fuseaction=History&Surname=Kavanagh&UserID= Philip S Kavanagh / Researcher in Irish History / The Kavanagh name]