said to have been the first Christian king of Ireland, whose mother, Eirc or Erca, became by a subsequent marriage the grandmother of St Columba. Of this monarch, known as Murkertagh MacNeill (Niall), and sometimes by reference to his mother as Murkertagh Mac Erca, the story is told, illustrating an ancient Celtic custom, that in making a league with a tribe in Meath he emphasized the inviolability of the treaty by having it written with the blood of both clans mixed in one vessel. Murkertagh was chief of the great north Irish clan, the Cinel Eoghain,[1] and after becoming king of Ireland about the year 517, he wrested from a neighbouring clan a tract of country in the modern County Derry, which remained till the 17th century in the possession of the Cinel Eoghain. The inauguration stone of the Irish kings, the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny, fabled to have been the pillow of the patriarch Jacob on the occasion of his dream of the heavenly ladder, was said to have been presented by Murkertagh to the king of Dalriada, by whom it was conveyed to Dunstaffnage Castle in Scotland (see Scone). A lineal descendant of Murkertagh was Niall Frassach (i.e. of the showers), who became king of Ireland in 763; his surname, of which several fanciful explanations have been suggested, probably commemorating merely weather of exceptional severity at his birth. His grandson, Niall (791-845), drove back the Vikings who in his time began to infest the coast of Donegal. Niall's son, Aedh (Hugh) Finnlaith, was father of Niall Glundubh (i.e. Niall of the black knee), one of the most famous of the early Irish kings, from whom the family surname of the O'Neills was derived. His brother Domhnall (Donnell) was king of Ailech, a district in Donegal and Derry; the royal palace, the ruined masonry of which is still to be seen, being on the summit of a hill 800 ft. high overlooking loughs Foyle and Swilly. On the death of Domhnall in 911 Niall Glundubh became king of Ailech, and he then attacked and defeated the king of Dalriada at Glarryford, in County Antrim, and the king of Ulidia near Ballymena. Having thus extended his dominion he became king of Ireland in 915. To him is attributed the revival of the ancient meeting of Irish clans known as the Fair of Telltown (see Ireland: Early History). He fought many battles against the Norsemen, in one of which he was killed in 919 at Kilmashoge, where his place of burial is still to be seen.
His son Murkertagh, who gained a great victory over the Norse in 926, is celebrated for his triumphant march round Ireland, the Moirthimchell Eiream, in which, starting from Portglenone on the Bann, he completed a circuit of the island at the head of his armed clan, returning with many captive kings and chieftains. From the dress of his followers in this expedition he was called “Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks.” The exploit was celebrated by Cormacan, the king's bard, in a poem that has been printed by the Irish Archaeological Society; and a number of Murkertagh's other deeds are related in the Book of Leinster. He was killed in battle against the Norse in 943, and was succeeded as king of Ailech by his son, Donnell Ua Niall (i.e. O'Neill, grandson of Neill, or Niall, the name O'Neill becoming about this time an hereditary family surname[2]), whose grandson, Flaherty, became renowned for piety by going on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1030.
Aedh (Hugh) O'Neill, chief of the Cinel Eoghain, or lord of Tir-Eoghain (Tir-Owen, Tyrone) at the end of the 12th century, was the first of the family to be brought prominently into conflict with the Anglo-Norman monarchy, whose pretensions he took the lead in disputing in Ulster. It was probably his son or nephew (for the relationship is uncertain, the genealogies of the O'Neills being rendered obscure by the contemporaneous occurrence of the same name in different branches of the family) Hugh O'Neill, lord of Tyrone, who was styled “Head of the liberality and valour of the Irish.” Hugh's son, Brian, by gaining the support of the earl of Ulster, was inaugurated[3] prince, or lord, of Tyrone in 1291; and his son Henry became lord of the Clann Aodha Buidhe (Clanaboy or Clandeboye), early in the 14th century. Henry's son Murkertagh the Strongminded, and his great-grandson Hugh, described as “the most renowned, hospitable and valorous of the princes of Ireland in his time,” greatly consolidated the power of the O'Neills. Niall Og O'Neill, one of the four kings of Ireland, accepted knighthood from Richard II. of England; and his son Eoghan formally acknowledged the supremacy of the English crown, though he afterwards ravaged the Pale, and was inaugurated “the O'Neill” (i.e. chief of the clan) on the death of his kinsman Domhnall Boy O'Neill; a dignity from which he was deposed in 1455 by his son Henry, who in 1463 was acknowledged as chief of the Irish kings by Henry VII. of England. Contemporary with him was Neill Mor O'Neill (see below), lord of Clanaboy, from whose son Brian was descended the branch of the O'Neills who, settling in Portugal in the 18th century, became prominent among the Portuguese nobility, and who at the present day are the representatives in the male line of the ancient Irish kings of the house of O'Neill.
Conn O'Neill (c. 1480-1559), 1st earl of Tyrone, surnamed Bacach (the Lame), grandson of Henry O'Neill mentioned above, was the first of the O'Neills whom the attempts of the English in the 16th century to subjugate Ireland brought to the front as leaders of the native Irish. Conn, who was related through his mother with the earl of Kildare (Fitzgerald), became chief of the Tyrone branch of the O'Neills (Cinel Eoghain) about 1520. When Kildare became viceroy in 1524, O'Neill consented to act as his sword bearer in ceremonies of state; but his allegiance was not to be reckoned upon, and while ready enough to give verbal assurances of loyalty, he could not be persuaded to give hostages as security for his conduct; but Tyrone having been invaded in 1541 by Sir Anthony St Leger, the lord deputy, Conn delivered up his son as a hostage, attended a parliament held at Trim, and, crossing to England, made his submission at Greenwich to Henry VIII., who created him earl of Tyrone for life, and made him a present of money and a valuable gold chain. He was also made a privy councillor in Ireland, and received a grant of lands within the Pale. This event created a deep impression in Ireland, where O'Neill's submission to the English king, and his acceptance of an English title, were resented by his clansmen and dependents. The rest of the earl's life was mainly occupied by endeavours to maintain his influence, and by an undying feud with his son Shane (John), arising out of his transaction with Henry VIII. For not only did the nomination of O'Neill's reputed son Matthew as his heir with the title of baron of Dungannon by the English king conflict with the Irish custom of tanistry (q.v.) which regulated the chieftainship of the Irish clans, but Matthew, if indeed he was O'Neill's son at all, was illegitimate; while Shane, Conn's eldest legitimate son, was not the man to submit tamely to any invasion of his rights. The fierce family feud only terminated when Matthew was murdered by agents of Shane in 1558; Conn dying about a year later. Conn was twice married, Shane being the son of his first wife, a daughter of Hugh Boy O'Neill of Clanaboy. An illegitimate daughter of Conn married the celebrated Sorley Boy MacDonnell (q.v.).
Shane O'Neill (c. 1530-1567) was a chieftain whose support was worth gaining by the English even during his father's lifetime; but rejecting overtures from the earl of Sussex, the lord deputy, Shane refused to help the English against the Scottish settlers on the coast of Antrim, allying himself instead with the MacDonnells, the most powerful of these immigrants. Nevertheless Queen Elizabeth, on succeeding to the English throne, was disposed to come to terms with Shane, who after his father's death was de facto chief of the formidable O'Neill clan. She accordingly agreed to recognize his claims to the chieftainship, thus throwing over Brian O'Neill, son of the murdered Matthew,
- ↑ The Cinel, or Kinel, was a group of related clans occupying an extensive district. See Joyce, op. cit. i. 166.
- ↑ The adoption of hereditary names became general in Ireland, in obedience, it is said, to an ordinance of Brian Boru, about the end of the 10th century. For the method of their formation see Joyce, op. cit. ii. 19.
- ↑ The ceremony of “inauguration” among the ancient Irish clans was an elaborate and important one. A stone inauguration chair of the O'Neills is preserved in the Belfast Museum. See Joyce, op. cit. i. 46.
