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 the MacCarthys had had any footing in these counties. They were both free clans acknowledging the MacCarthys as Kings of Desmond, following them in war, and paying them certain fixed rents in money or kind. Even this much of subordination was denied in the case of O'Mahony.

But the great Irish chiefs had skilled lawyers at their command; they knew that their claims might be made to appear plausible in an English court; they had rendered very great services to the Crown; above all, since a verdict for them would undoubtedly have been to the immediate advantage of the clansmen in the lands concerned, they might hope for a favourable verdict if the case was submitted to a Cork or Kerry jury.

And so we find that a Kerry jury duly found MacCarthy Mór's title to most if not all of the lands he claimed. Coshmaing, Eóghanacht, and Clan Donnell Roe had, however, actually been set out to Valentine Browne and his son Nicholas who were in possession. They were hard to move, and MacCarthy was an improvident drunkard without any legitimate male children. Accordingly a compromise was arrived at. In consideration of a sum of less than £600 the lands