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Maguire
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Maguire

dense fog. The cavalry on either side were close together before they recognised the situation. Bingham's men at first took to flight, and were hotly pursued by Maguire; but on arriving at ‘the camp and fortification where the governor was,’ the English troops ‘turned upon Maguire and pursued him until he had reached the middle of his forces’ (Annals of the Four Masters, vi. 1938). Bingham lost only William Clifford; on the other side were killed among others Magauran, Cathal Maguire, and Felim McCaffry. Maguire now retreated into Fermanagh with considerable spoil (Cox, i. 447–8).

During the next few years Maguire alternately acknowledged and defied the government. Towards the end of 1593 he was wounded in an attempt to prevent Bagnall and Tyrone from crossing the Erne. In June 1594, in conjunction with Hugh Roe O'Donnell, he invested Enniskillen, and when Bingham endeavoured to raise the siege, intercepted and defeated him at the Arney river in an engagement called Bel-Atha-nam Briosgaidh, or the Ford of Biscuits. Enniskillen surrendered to Maguire immediately afterwards. Next year he devastated Cavan, and was publicly declared a traitor (Fynes Moryson, ii. 16; Cox, i. 447). On the outbreak of Tyrone's war Maguire took vigorous action; he shared in the victory of Clontibert, and commanded the cavalry at Mullaghbrack in 1596, when the Anglo-Irish were defeated with great loss. Later in the year he sent in his submission (Fynes Moryson, ii. 17), but in 1598 he was again in arms, and held command at Bagnall's defeat at Yellow Ford. In 1599 he joined in a raid upon Thomond, and took Inchiquin Castle. Early in 1600 he commanded the cavalry in Tyrone's expedition into Munster and Leinster. But he was intercepted by Sir Warham St. Leger within a mile of Cork on 18 Feb. 1600 (Life and Letters of Florence MacCarthy Reagh). An engagement followed, and in the course of it Maguire slew St. Leger, but his own wounds were so severe that he died a few hours afterwards. ‘His foster-father, his priest, all the commanders of his regiment,’ met their death on the field. ‘Thus this auncient Traytor to her Matie,’ wrote Sir H. Power to the council, 4 March 1600, ‘ended his dayes, hauing prosperously contynewed these xvj yeares, and being the meanes of drawing ye rest into action.’ His death caused ‘a giddiness of spirits and depression of mind in O'Neill and the Irish chiefs in general; and this was no wonder, for he was the bulwark of valour and prowess, the shield of protection and shelter, the tower of support and defence, and the pillar of the hospitality and achievements of the Oirghialla, and of almost all the Irish of his time’ (Annals of the Four Masters, vi. 2164–5). An ode, addressed to Maguire by his bard O'Hussey, has been forcibly rendered into English by James Clarence Mangan [q. v.] Maguire is said to have married a daughter of Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone. He was succeeded as lord of Fermanagh by his younger brother Cuconnaught Maguire, whom the ‘Four Masters’ style ‘an intelligent, comely, courageous, magnanimous, rapid-marching, adventurous man, endowed with wisdom and personal beauty, and all the other good qualifications.’ He accompanied Tyrone and Tyrconnel to the continent and died at Genoa on 12 Aug. 1608. Almost the whole of Fermanagh was confiscated after his departure and planted with English settlers.

[Calendar of State Papers, 1586–8, 1588–92, 1592–6, passim; Cox's Hibernia Anglicana, ii. passim; Camden's Annals; Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, ii. 12–17, 32; Annals of the Four Masters, vol. vi. passim; Burke's Extinct Peerages; Renehan's Collections; Stuart's Armagh, p. 285; Life and Letters of Florence MacCarthy Reagh; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Carew MSS.; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]

A. F. P.

MAGUIRE, JOHN FRANCIS (1815–1872), Irish politician, was eldest son of John Maguire, merchant, of Cork, where he was born in 1815. He was called to the Irish bar in 1843, but adopted the profession of a journalist. In 1841 he founded the ‘Cork Examiner,’ in support of O'Connell, and conducted the paper for many years. In 1847 he was brought forward as the repeal candidate for Dungarvan in opposition to Richard Lalor Sheil, who defeated him by only fifteen votes. After a second unsuccessful candidature (against Charles F. A. C. Ponsonby) he was returned at the general election of 1852; a petition charging him with corrupt compromise with his opponent was dismissed by a committee of the House of Commons, and he continued to represent the constituency until 1865. From 1865 till his death he represented the city of Cork. In parliament he acted with the party of independent Irishmen pledged to resist every government who refused to concede tenant-right, disestablishment, and other demands of the Irish nationalists. Offers of office were made to him by both English parties, but, unlike many of his friends, he steadily declined them. In 1857 he thus described the position of his party in parliament: ‘They had voted Lord Derby out of office and Lord Aberdeen into it in 1853. They had displaced the Aberdeen cabinet on the motion for inquiry into Crimean