THE LEGENDARY IRISH KINGDOM OF TYRCONNELL IS ASSOCIATED GEOGRAPHICALLY WITH COUNTY DONEGAL
He was married four times, and died in 1564.
Of his sons we shall treat with
SIR HUGH McMANUS O'DONNELL, King of Tyrconnell, who married firstly and had issue,
Duncan;Donnell;Rory;Joan; another daughter.
He married secondly, Iníon Dubh, daughter of the house of the McDonnells of the Isles, and had further issue,
HUGH ROE, his heir;RORY, succeeded his brother;Manus;Cathbarr;Nuala; Margaret; Mary; Gráinne.
The eldest son of his second marriage,
HUGH ROE O'DONNELL (c1572-1602), Red Hugh, was perhaps the most dangerous antagonist the English government ever had to contend with in Ireland: in early life he not only displayed considerable genius and independence of spirit, but made those qualities prized among his clansmen and countrymen, by the noble generosity of his manners, and the matchless symmetry of his form.
In former times, the O'Donnells of Tyrconnell, and the O'Neills of Tyrone, were often addressed by the English monarch as his equals, and aid against foreign foes was more than once asked of them, as peers in royalty, by English monarchs.
In 1244, HENRY III solicited help by a letter, still on record, addressed, "Donaldo Regi de Tirconnell;" and some of the successors of the puissant HENRY III, and the scarcely less proud king of Tyrconnell, interchanged these royal courtesies as peers in degree.
It was not unnatural that the high-spirited young Hugh should desire to substantiate an independence so often and so distinctly recognized.
Burke's Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages (1866) apprises us that he made no secret of his intentions, which were soon the theme of conversation throughout Ireland, and which reaching the ears of the Lord Justice, alarmed in no light measure the royal council in Dublin Castle.
Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy of Ireland, instead of courting the haughty young chieftain with honours and favour, framed a plot to seize him, which, though successful at the time, conduced eventually to render implacable the proud and injured youth.
In 1587 a ship, laden with Spanish wines, was fitted out and dispatched to one of the harbours of Tyrconnell, and the young Hugh O'Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnell, having been lured by false appearances to trust himself on board, he was made prisoner and conveyed to Dublin Castle.
There he was held captive for three full years, but in 1591, he managed to elude his keepers, and found means to pass into Tyrconnell, where, his aged father resigning in his favour, he was proclaimed by the tribes chief of his name, and the white wand, the simple sceptre of his sway, was placed in his hands, with solemn and time-honoured rites by the Coarb of Kilmacrenan.
For the sixteen years following he was the scourge and terror of the government.
He kept his mountain territory of Donegal, in spite of ELIZABETH I's best generals: carried his excursions to the remotest parts of Munster, and made his power dreaded, and his name a word of terror, "even in the rich plains of Meath, and to where the Shannon blends its waters with the Atlantic."
At last, the only military fault he was ever known to commit led to his total rout at Kinsale in the early spring of 1601, by LORD MOUNTJOY, one of the ablest generals, and perhaps the wisest statesman ever sent by England to Ireland.
Hugh Roe, King of Tyrconnell, this bold and ill-fated chieftain, was the first exile of the O'Donnells.
After the defeat of the Irish, and the inefficient force of their Spanish allies at Kinsale, he sailed for Spain to crave further succours of PHILIP III, King of Spain.
In the known religious sympathies of the Spanish king, the exile set his trust; and, as the annalists quaintly tell us, "moreover, on account of that monarch's love for the Gaels, from their having primally come out of Spain to invade Ireland, as is manifest in the Book of Invasions."
On the 6th January, 1602, O'Donnell, with his brave companions, took shipping at Castlehaven, near Bantry; and on the 14th of the same month, he landed at Corunna, where he was nobly received by the Conde de Caraçena, then Governor of Galicia, who invited him to lodge in his house.
The Annals of the Four Masters record faithfully the princely welcome PHILIP III gave him; but O'Donnell's course was well-nigh run.
On his arrival at Simancas, two leagues from the court, which was sojourning at Valladolid, the exiled chieftain took his death sickness, and died on the 10th September, 1602, in the house which the King of Spain had in that town of Simancas.
THIS celebrated Irishman had no child and was consequently succeeded by his brother,
RORY O'DONNELL (1575-1608), last King of Tyrconnell, who submitting to the English government, surrendered his royalty, and obtained a re-grant of his lands from the Crown, to be held in capite; and was created, in 1603, Baron Donegal and EARL OF TYRCONNELL.
He soon, however, with reason or not, suspected the government of plotting his ruin, and fled to the continent for safety, perhaps for succour.
He bore with him his only son, Hugh, aged but eleven months.
With them fled the Earl's brother, Cathbarr, together with his only son, Hugh, and Cathbarr's young wife, the sister of the chivalrous Sir Cahir O'Doherty.
With them too fled their sister, the Lady Nuala, wife of her valiant but turbulent kinsman, Sir Niall Garve O'Donnell, who, after refusing from the government the title of Baron Lifford, died in the Tower of London, having lain there for a quarter of a century, a state prisoner of the government in whose service he had often risked life and honour against the cause of his tribe and his co-religionists.
Rory O'Donnell, 1st Earl, espoused the Lady Bridget FitzGerald, daughter of Henry, 12th Earl of Kildare, and, as we have seen, left an only and infant son, named Hugh, subsequently Hugh Albert.
He lived in Spain and the Low Countries, and styles himself, in existing documents, of almost regal character, Earl of Tyrconnell and Donegal, Baron of Lifford, Lord of Sligo and Lower Connaught, and knight commander of the Order of Alcántara.
He rose to be a general in the French service, married Anna-Margaret, daughter of Maximilien II de Hénin, 5th Count of Bossu, Knight of the Golden Fleece, and a near kinswoman of the last eccentric Duke of Guise.
When the 1st Earl died, this only son was aged about 2½.
For some few years one loses sight of both him and his first cousin, Hugh, son of Cathbarr, but in all probability they were confided to the charge of Cathbarr's youthful widow Rosa, Lady O'Doherty, who wedded secondly, Owen Roe O'Neill, the famous general of the confederate Catholics, in the war against the Parliamentarians.
It may be presumed that she brought back these children from Rome to the archducal court at Brussels.
As both boys were called Hugh, there was added to the name of him who was chief of his house that of the Archduke, his protector, who was in all likelihood his godfather in confirmation; and henceforward this
HUGH ALBERT O'DONNELL (1606-42), 2nd Earl of Tyrconnell.
About this time he was attached as page to the court of the Infanta Isabella, the consort of Albert VII, Archduke of Austria.
That the two young O'Donnells were brought up at the University of Louvain is clear, from the authority of Nicolaus Vernulæus.
The Irish naturally cherished a generous memory of this heir of one of their most famous chieftains.
The court of Spain was fully alive to the political importance of the exile.
Even at the cautious Roman court there appears to have been some that partook in a measure of the illusions of the native Irish, that the exiled O'Donnells might one day be placed by circumstances in a position to renew the stern struggle for their faith and lands, in which fate had declared against their fathers.
In 1641, when the Irish rose in arms to oppose the Parliamentarians, many an anxious eye was turned towards Albert Hugh, the banished heir of Tyrconnell, who was then a Spanish general of reputation.
His military rank and experience, his undoubted claim to the position of chief, though not senior of his clan, the popular belief that he was alluded to in the "old rhyming prophesies," which for ages had such a strong hold upon the Celtic imagination, and even still are not forgotten - all contributed to make some of the ablest of his countrymen look anxiously for his return to his native land.
He seems indeed to have craved permission of the Spanish court to place himself at the service of his country; but owing to the war with France, in which he was employed, this permission was refused; and he was killed in action when his ship engaged a French vessel in 1642 and caught fire, the year following that in which his country had again taken up arms.
Hugh Albert, the 2nd Earl, does not appear to have had any issue.
The titles attainted by JAMES I remained under forfeiture.
First published in November, 2922. Extracts from Burke's Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages (1866)
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