Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/447

 literature. Under the auspices of the Southwark Irish Literary Society, O'Donnell's poems were published in 1891, and his grave was marked by a Celtic cross. 

O'DONNELL, MANUS (d. 1564), lord of Tyrconnel, eldest son of Hugh Duv O'Donnell, had apparently attained the age of manhood in 1510, in which year he was appointed deputy-governor of Tyrconnel during his father's two years' absence on a pilgrimage to Rome. He established a reputation for military ability, which subsequent events confirmed, in defending his country from the attacks of the O'Neills. His father's ill-health after his return placed the government of the country mainly in the hands of Manus, and he took an active personal share in the almost continuous warfare that prevailed with his neighbours.

Manus's predominance aroused the jealousy of his brothers, who raised a faction, supported by their father at the instigation of his mistress, against him. The quarrel reached a climax in 1531. At Hugh O'Donnell's request Maguire interposed in the interests of peace, and attacked Manus and his sons, who were encamped in the barony of Raphoe. The attack failed, but it forced Manus into an alliance with his former foe, O'Neill, with whose assistance he succeeded in re-establishing his authority in Tyrconnel. His alliance with O'Neill naturally attracted the attention of the English government, and Sir William Skeffington [q. v.] talked of the necessity of interfering, but nothing was done; and Hugh O'Donnell having died on 5 July 1537, Manus was inaugurated, ‘ad saxum juxta ecclesiam de Kilmacrenan,’ O'Donnell in his place ‘by the successors of St. Columbkille, with the permission and by the advice of the nobles of Tirconnell, both lay and ecclesiastical.’ Shortly after his inauguration he wrote to Lord Leonard Grey protesting his loyalty, explaining his quarrel with his father, and promising to do ‘as good service as ever my fader dud to the uttermost of my power.’ But his marriage early in the next year with the Lady Eleanor Fitzgerald, sister of ‘Silken Thomas’ and widow of Mac Carthy Reagh, and a rumour that he and O'Neill had entered into a league to restore the young heir to the earldom of Kildare, did not give much hope that he would redeem his promise. Grey failed to induce him to surrender the young Gerald, and in August 1539 O'Donnell and O'Neill invaded the Pale with an immense army. The two chiefs were on their way homewards laden with plunder, and had already reached Bellahoe, the ford which separates Meath from Monaghan, when they were overtaken and utterly routed by the lord-deputy. In the following year O'Donnell, O'Neill, and O'Brien combined to overrun the Pale, but their plot was frustrated by the vigilance of lord-justice Sir William Brereton; and O'Donnell, who about this time was compelled to turn his arms against his own brothers, John of Lurg, Egneghan, and Donough, of whom he hanged the first, and placed the latter two in strict confinement, found plenty to occupy his attention at home.

In July 1541 he expressed a wish to ‘intercommon’ with the lord-deputy, Sir Anthony St. Leger, whom he promised to meet at the beginning of August in O'Reilly's country (co. Cavan). He kept his promise, ‘and, after long communycacion had upon dyvers articles,’ ‘he bothe condescendid and indentid to be your Majesties true, faythefull subjecte,’ promising to renounce the primacy and authority of the pope, to attend parliament, to receive and hold his lands from the king, and to take such title as it pleased the king to confer on him. He expressed a wish to be created Earl of Sligo, evidently in the hope that, if his wish were granted, it would establish his claim to the overlordship of lower Connaught; for ever since his inauguration not a year had elapsed without one, and sometimes even two expeditions for the purpose of collecting ‘his full tribute and hostages’ from the inhabitants (see Hist. of Sligo, i. 279, for the curious conditions on which he granted the ‘bardachd’ or wardenship of Sligo to Teige, son of Cathal Oge O'Conor. O'Conor Sligo had acknowledged his suzerainty in 1539). His wish was not gratified, though Henry offered to create him earl of Tyrconnel; but his submission was hailed with satisfaction by the government as the beginning of a new era in Ireland, and the support which he rendered St. Leger against O'Neill in the autumn of 1541 confirmed the good impression he had created. His request in May 1542 to be excused from personal attendance on parliament ‘tum ob distanciam (haut mediocrem) locorum, in quibus agitur parliamentum, adde iter esse minime tutum,’ raised some doubts as to his loyalty. But these proved unfounded. He sent his eldest son, Calvagh [q. v.], to excuse his conduct, and to promise that he would repair as soon as possible to England. Early in the following year rumours were current of an alliance between him and Argyll; and though St. Leger was inclined to place