and acquitted. On his liberation in April 1798 he went to London, with the intention, as he says, of ‘residing there and avoiding any interference in politics;’ but his brother Arthur had just been arrested at Margate, and the home office decided on again securing Roger. He was sent from place to place in the custody of king's messengers, and on 2 June 1798 was finally committed to Newgate in Dublin.
In April 1799, with his fellow-prisoners, T. A. Emmet, Chambers, his brother Arthur, and others, he was removed to Fort George in Scotland. In the same year he managed to publish ‘Letters to the People of Great Britain.’ After some years' imprisonment he obtained his release. His affairs had been ruined meanwhile, but he had fortune enough to rent Dangan Castle, Trim, co. Meath. The house was burnt down shortly after he had effected an insurance on it for 5,000l. He then eloped with a married lady, and in 1817 was arrested at Trim for having headed a band of his retainers in robbing the Galway coach. The son of O'Connor's agent asserted that this raid was made by O'Connor not for money, but in quest of a packet of love-letters, written by his friend Sir Francis Burdett, and which were likely to be used in evidence against Burdett at the suit of a peer who suspected him of criminal intimacy with his wife. Sir Francis Burdett hurried to Ireland as a witness on O'Connor's behalf at his trial at Trim, and Roger was acquitted.
In 1822 O'Connor published ‘The Chronicles of Eri, being the History of the Gael, Sciot Iber, or Irish People: translated from the Original Manuscripts in the Phœnician dialect of the Scythian Language.’ The book is mainly, if not entirely, the fruit of O'Connor's imagination. Roger's portrait is prefixed, described as ‘O'Connor Cier-rige, head of his race, and O'Connor, chief of the prostrated people of this Nation. Soumis, pas vaincus.’ O'Connor is described as a man of fascinating manners and conversation, but Dr. Madden considers that his wits were always more or less disordered. Through life he professed to be a sceptic in religion, and declared that Voltaire was his God. He died at Kilcrea, co. Cork, on 27 Jan. 1834.
His will, a strange document, beginning: ‘I, O'Connor and O'Connor Cier-rige, called by the English Roger O'Connor, late of Connorville and Dangan Castle,’ is dated 1 July 1831. Feargus O'Connor [q. v.], the chartist, was his son.
[O'Connor's Letters to the People of Great Britain, etc., Dublin, 1799; Pelham MSS., Brit. Mus.; Fitzpatrick's Secret Service under Pitt, 1892; Dublin and London Mag. 1828, p. 30; information from Professor Barry, Queen's College, Cork (son of Roger's agent); Madden's United Irishmen; Ireland before the Union.]
O'CONNOR, TURLOUGH (1088–1156), king of Ireland, called by Irish writers Toirdhealbhach mór Ua Conchobhair, son of Roderic or Ruaidhri O'Connor (d. 1118) [q. v.], king of Connaught, was born in 1088 in Connaught. His brother Domhnall was deposed in 1106 by Murtough (Muircheartach) O'Brien (d. 1119) [q. v.] O'Connor was inaugurated king of the Sil Muireadhaigh, as the O'Connors and their allied septs were called, at Athantearmoinn, co. Roscommon. His first war was in 1110 with the Conmhaicne, the group of tribes allied to O'Farrell, who had invaded his country, and whom he defeated at Ros, co. Roscommon, but was soon after routed at Magh Breanghair, with the loss of Meanman and Ruaidhri O'Muireadhaigh, two of his most important feudatory chiefs. In 1111 he made two successful forays into the south of Ulster, invading it from the mountains south of Lough Erne, plundering Termonmagrath and the country north of Swanlinbar, and near Binaghlon, co. Fermanagh. He acknowledged Domhnall O'Lochlainn [q. v.] as king of Ireland in 1114 at Dunlo, co. Galway, and marched with him to Tullagh O'Dea, co. Clare, where a truce of a year was made with the Munstermen. When the year was up the Munstermen invaded Meath, and O'Connor took advantage of the occasion to march into Thomond, which he plundered as far as Limerick; but on his way home he was attacked in force and himself severely wounded. He was able later in the year to make a successful attack on the Conmaicne by taking his army in boats across Lough Rea. After a year of such successful plunder he made a present of three pieces of plate to the monastery of Clonmacnoise, a drinking-horn mounted in gold, a gilt cup, and a patena (mullog) of gilt bronze.
He continued his wars with Munster in 1116, demolishing Cenncoradh, the chief fortress of the Dal Cais, and making a great spoil of cows and prisoners. A spirited attack on his communications by Dermot O'Brien compelled him to abandon his prisoners. The war was continued throughout 1117, and in 1118 the death of the king of Munster gave Murchadh O'Maeleachlainn, king of all Ireland, an opportunity for interference, and he marched as far as Glanmire, co. Cork, accompanied by O'Connor. They made a partition of Munster, and took hostages. O'Connor then fought the Danes of Dublin, and carried off a son of the king of Ireland who
