the Four Masters) state that Cathal actually died in the abbey, ‘i naibid manaigh leth,’ in the habit of a grey monk. This must be taken to mean an assumption of a monastic habit on a death-bed, as an indication of the abandonment of worldly things. Standish Hayes O'Grady has translated a curious poem in which Cathal is described as conversing with a fellow monk on the tonsure and other features of a religious life (printed with text in a note to the ‘Book of the Dean of Lismore’).
Besides Knockmoy, Cathal founded the Franciscan abbey at Athlone and the abbey of Ballintober, co. Mayo, in which, according to the O'Conor Don, mass has been celebrated without interruption since the foundation. His wife was Mór, daughter of Domhnall O'Brien. She died in 1217; and they had one daughter, Sadhb, who died in 1266, and three sons: Conchobhar, drowned in 1190; Aedh, who succeeded him as king of Connaught, and was murdered in the house of Geoffrey de Marisco [q. v.] by an Englishman whose wife he had ceremoniously kissed, and who was hanged for the crime; Feidhlimidh, who was made king of Connaught by MacWilliam Burke in 1230, and died in 1265 in the Dominican monastery of Roscommon, where his monument is still to be seen. Feidlimidh's silver seal, inscribed ‘S. Fedelmid regis conactie,’ was dug up in Connaught and given to Charles I by Sir Beverly Newcomen in 1634 (Ware, Antiquities, ed. Harris, ii. 68). A letter from Feidlimidh to Henry III, written in 1261, is printed in Rymer's ‘Fœdera’ (i. 240), and in facsimile in the ‘National MSS. of Ireland’ (pt. ii.); in it he promises fidelity to Henry III and to Edward, his son. Feidlimidh was succeeded by his son Aedh, who defeated the English under the Earl of Ulster in a great battle near Carrick-on-Shannon, co. Leitrim, and burnt five English castles; he died on 3 May 1274, and was buried in the abbey of Boyle. The chiefship of the Sil Muireadhaigh passed to the descendants of Aedh, elder brother of Feidlimidh, son of Cathal Crobhdhearg, through his grandson Eoghan, who died in 1274; but after the death of Turlough O'Connor in 1466 the clan lost most of its power, owing to its complete division into the two septs, of which the chiefs were called in Irish Ua Conchobhair donn and Ua Conchobhair ruadh, or brown O'Connor and ruddy O'Connor. The love of titles has led the descendants of O'Connor donn, since Irish literature has become obsolete, to speak of donn as equivalent to Dominus, and as a mark of supremacy. There are no grounds in Irish etymology or history for this view, and the method of distinguishing septs of the same clan by epithets describing the complexion or other physical characteristic of an eminent chief is common in all parts of Ireland.
[Annala Rioghacta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, vols. ii. iii. iv. Dublin, 1851; O'Donovan's Tribes and Customs of Hy Many, Dublin, 1843; the Topographical Poems of O'Dubhagain, ed. O'Donovan, Dublin, 1862; Ware's Antiquities of Ireland, ed. Harris; Facsimiles of National MSS. of Ireland, ed. Gilbert, pt. ii., London, 1878; Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i. ed. 1816; O'Conor Don's O'Conors of Connaught, pp. 151–2, Dublin, 1891. In 1851 O'Donovan proposed to write a treatise on Cathal's birth and claims.]
O'CONNOR, FEARGUS (1794–1855), chartist leader, son of Roger O'Connor [q. v.] of Connorville, co. Cork, and nephew of Arthur O'Connor [q. v.], was born on 18 July 1794 (Wheeler, Memoir, printed with funeral oration on Feargus O'Connor by William Jones). Feargus, after attending Portarlington grammar school, entered Trinity College, Dublin, but took no degree, and was called to the Irish bar. He and several of his brothers lived on their father's Dangan Castle estate, and Feargus speaks of himself (The Labourer, 1847, i. 146) as having ‘been on the turf in a small way.’ In 1822 he published a pamphlet entitled ‘A State of Ireland,’ an almost meaningless composition ornamented with six Latin quotations, five of which contain serious blunders. He was probably a Whiteboy, and in after years described himself as having been wounded in a skirmish with the troops (Frost, Forty Years' Recollections, p. 174). In 1831 he took part in the reform agitation in co. Cork, and in 1832, after the passing of the Reform Bill, travelled through the country organising the registration of the new electorate. In the general election of 1832 he was returned as a repealer at the head of the poll for co. Cork, being described as ‘of Fort Robert.’ In the parliaments of 1833–4 he spoke frequently and almost exclusively on Irish questions. From the beginning of his life in England he associated with the extreme English radicals. In March 1833 he spoke against the whig government at a meeting of the socialistic ‘National Union of the Working Classes’ (Poor Man's Guardian, 1833, p. 91). He soon quarrelled with Daniel O'Connell the ‘Liberator’ [q. v.], but was nevertheless re-elected for co. Cork in 1835. In June 1835 he was unseated owing to his want of the necessary property qualification. According to the reports of evidence before the committee, he seems at that time to have owned property worth about 300l. a year (Cork Southern
