Irish nationalists Patrick Pearse and Philip O'Sullivan Beare characterised O'More as a patriot who fought against the tyranny of the English, who had established plantations on his family's land.[1][2] Unionist Peter Kerr-Smiley claimed that despite O'More's ostensible duty to protect Catholicism in Ireland, him and his followers were "nothing more or less than a band of lawless brigands whose chief aim was to attack small towns or villages, burn the Protestant houses, and murder and mutilate the inhabitants".[3]
His mother was either his father's first wife, the daughter of Tadhg O'Dunne,[4] or his second wife, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Butler and granddaughter of Piers Butler, eighth earl of Ormond.[5]
(Note: Margaret's father was Thomas Butler (b. 1498), younger brother of James "The Lame" Butler (b. 1496), 9th earl of Ormonde. This is a different Thomas Butler than "Black Tom," 10th earl of Ormonde born in 1531 and James' first child and Red Piers' grandson. "Black Tom" was fostered in the O'More household in the years leading up to 1544 when he was sent to London to live with his father's comrade in arms, Henry VIII and to be educated alongside Henry's son, Edward. It was around the same time (1543-1544) that Rory's father married Margaret Butler, so the timing would fit with Rory's birth later that year). [6]
Upon their father's death at the hands of his brother Giolla Pádraig O'More, it seems that Margaret removed Rory and his siblings from Laois.[4] Giolla Pádraig died in the Marshalsea in 1548,[7][8] and was succeeded by Rory's uncle Conall Óg O'More. In 1557, Conall was crucified in Leighlinbridge.[8][9][4]
In 1556, Queen Mary I approved the Settlement of Laois and Offaly Act "..whereby the King and Queen's Majesties, and the Heires and Successors of the Queen, be entituled to the Counties of Leix, Slewmarge, Irry, Glinmaliry, and Offaily, and for making the same Countries Shire Grounds."[10] This shired the new counties of Queen's County (now County Laois) and King's County (now County Offaly), thereby dispossessing the rest of Clan O'More and starting the Plantations of Ireland.[5]
It is possible Rory was raised in England alongside his brother Calvagh.[5] It seems he eventually returned to Laois around 1564.[4]
Return to Laois
The young O'More returned to Laois to find it had changed significantly. Since the death of O'More's father, many senior men of the O'More clan had died - either from illness, execution by fellow Gaelic nobles, or execution by the English authorities - and the English had established planters and government garrisons in the county. According to historian Emmett O'Byrne, this was "a land fraught with continual violence".[4]
He quickly became friends with the Sheriff of Laois, Englishman Sir Francis Cosby. O'More and Cosby extorted fees from both plantation owners and their Gaelic rivals. However their friendship was disrupted when the planters hanged two cousins allied to Rory, and O'More began corresponding with ChiefHugh McSeán O'Byrne of Glenmalure. O'Byrne saw O'More's rebellious ambitions as an opportunity to increase the O'Byrne family's power in Leinster.[4]
O'More received a pardon on 17 February 1566,[11][4] and in March the 11th Earl of Kildare was granted a commission to make war upon the O'More clan. It seems O'More became largely peaceful until 1570, when the government executed his cousin Lysaght for conspiracy at Leighlinbridge. This left Rory O'More as the principal leader of the O'More clan (excepting his cousin Murtagh O'More, Lord of Slemargy).[4]
Early rebellion
By April 1571, O'More was constantly engaged in rebellion.[5][4] The English noted him as being particularly dangerous, and in 1572 he was fighting the Earl of Ormond and Queen Elizabeth. He was favoured by the weakness of the forces at the command of Cosby, the seneschal of Queen's County, and the temporary absence of Ormond in England.[5]
O'More allied with Fiach McHugh O'Byrne, Hugh O'Byrne's son, and the two men considerably terrorised the Pale. In April 1572 Fiach was implicated in the murder of Robert Browne, destabilising East Leinster. In August, Browne's father-in-law Sir Nicholas White, seneschal of Wexford, aggressively attacked Fiach and his allies. Much of Leinster was reduced to chaos. Rory submitted on 26 August, and he was pardoned that September.[4]
The Butlers and the Fitzgeralds were united against him; but in November, when the Earl of Desmond escaped from Dublin, it was O'More who escorted him through Kildare and protected him in Laois.[12][5]
In July 1573, the Earl of Kildare was granted commission to make war on the O'Mores and his allies, the O'Connor Falys. In November, O'More strengthened his alliance with the O'Byrne clan by marrying Margaret O'Byrne, daughter of Hugh.[4]
O'More and Fiach again attacked the Pale in March 1574. The next year, the Earl of Kildare was charged with conspiring with the O'More and O'Byrne clans as part of a plot to become Lord Deputy.[4]
Francis Cosby had become seneschal of Laois in 1572, and by now O'More considered Cosby to be his enemy. Cosby's enforcement of martial law incited further rebellion from O'More in 1576. O'More and his O'Connor Faly allies devastated Meath and the Irish midlands.[4]
Rory O'More was involved in the Earl of Kildare's plans in 1574, and was taken prisoner by the English in November. However, he quickly escaped captivity.[11]
Submission and war
Submission to Sidney
The man who would order his killing, Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney, called O'More 'an obscure and base varlet'.[5] When on his tour in 1575, Sidney wrote of him:
Rory Oge O'More hath the possession and settling-place in the Queen's County, whether the tenants will or no, as he occupieth what he listeth and wasteth what he will.[5]
O'More was afraid of Sidney and his power. When he came into O'More's territory in December 1575, the two men met in Kilkenny Cathedral. O'More "submitted himself, repenting (as he said) his former faults, and promising hereafter to live in better sort (for worse than he hath been he cannot be)". A new pardon was granted to him on 4 June 1576.[5]
Around New Year's Day 1577, a massacre of a group of Gaelic gentry by Sir Henry Sidney's troops took place at Mullaghmast in County Kildare. Sidney invited all of the Clan Chiefs and their derbhfine from Laois and Offaly to a peace conference at Mullaghmast. They arrived unarmed and were killed with their whole families by Sidney's troops, who had surrounded the castle. Estimates of the dead range from 40 (the number of Gaelic lords there) to hundreds.[13] Among the dead include Rory's cousin Murtagh O'More, Lord of Slemargy.[4]
Aftermath
O'More vowed to avenge the deaths of his relatives. He hoped for help from Spain, and with the backing of his friend John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricarde, he prepared to retaliate for the massacre. He allied himself with the Clan O'Connor, and gathered an army.[5]
On 3 March 1577 he burnt the town of Naas.[5][14] Sidney wrote to the council later the same month:
Rory Oge O'More and Cormock M'Cormock O'Conor have burnt the Naas. They ranne thorough the towne lyke hagges and furies of hell, with flakes of fier fastned on poles ends.[15]
On 18 March, Francis Cosby was ordered to attack Rory and the Clan O'Connor "with fire and sword".[5][16][4] In late March, Clans O'More and O'Connor avenged Mullaghmast with a raid into the Pale.[5]
Kidnapping of Harrington and Alexander Cosby
In November O'More kidnapped two Englishmen, Sir Henry Harrington (Sidney's nephew,[3] a privy councillor) and Alexander Cosby (governor of Laois, probably a relative of Francis Cosby),[4][5][1][17] during a supposed parlay.[18] He imprisoned them in chains in his house in the dense Gallen forests.[19][1]
The English began negotiating Harrington and Cosby's ransom. One of O'More's huntsman fled to the English - enraged by a heavy fine O'More had inflicted on him - and arrangements were made to betray the Irish chief. Under cover of night, the huntsman guided English military leader Harpole and 200 soldiers towards O'More's residence, which was fortified by a large ditch. The soldiers blocked the house's two avenues, surrounded the door, and fired into the house. O'More awoke, drew his sword and struck Harrington and Cosby four or five times.[1]
During the fighting, all of O'More's allies and family (including his wife Margaret and two of his sons) were killed, with the exception of O'More himself and his kinsman John O'More.[19][5][1]
Rory O'More managed to fight his way out, having hacked Harrington to such an extent that Sidney saw Harrington's brains moving when his wounds were being dressed.[20] O'More than rushed between a soldier's legs and escaped badly wounded and practically naked into the night.[4][19][21] The English soldiers were struck with such fear[1] that they believed O'More had compelled them not to touch him by magic.[18]
O'More managed to find shelter with his brother-in-law Fiach.[19]
Devastation in Carlow and Kildare
O'More spent time recovering. He took his revenge in early 1578 by ruthlessly devastating the Anglo-Irish towns of Co. Carlow and Co. Kildare,[4][19] killing women and children alike. After one such raid he took refuge with the O'Byrnes in Glenmalure, to escape Sir Nicholas Bagenal's forces.[4]
Death
The Queen's agents had put an enormous reward for the time - £1,000 - on his head, as was their practice with Irish clan chiefs who resisted.[citation needed] In an attempt to entrap his loyalist cousin Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Upper Ossory, O'More was cornered and killed by members of the Fitzpatrick family.[19][21][4]
According to Philip O'Sullivan Beare, "500 English and Irish mercenaries under command of Fitzpatrick, chief of Ossory, invaded Leix. [O'More] led four hundred Irish against them, but before he came in sight, leaving his own men to reconnoitre the strength and position of the enemy, he fell by chance into their midst with only two companions, with whom he perished under many wounds. On hearing this news, [O'More]'s soldiers filled with rage rushed thirsting for vengeance against the enemy and routed them, and after many were slain the commander with difficulty escaped on horseback."[1]
He died on 30 June 1578.[19][5][17] Although his followers had managed to bury him, his body was exhumed and decapitated.[4] His head was publicly displayed at Dublin Castle,[4][5][17] which at the time was ringed by the severed heads on spikes of major 'rebels'.[citation needed]
O'More's cousin, James, son of Lysaght, succeeded him as Lord of Laois. With Rory dead, Fiach O'Byrne became the leader of Gaelic Leinster. Although the English administration was fearful of a revenge plot from Fiach,[4] "for a long time after [O'More's] death no one was desirous to discharge one shot against the soldiers of the Crown".[8]
Family legacy
O'More and his unnamed first wife had four recorded sons.[4] With his second wife Margaret O'Byrne, they had seven children, including Doryne, Fiach, Remainn and Owny. During Harrington and Cosby's 1577 rescue, their troops decapitated Margaret and paraded her head throughout the midlands.[19]
John Burke took charge of Owny, and he became "as great a rebel as his father",[5] eventually becoming Lord of Laois around 1594.[19] After Owny's death in a skirmish in 1600, the O'Mores as an Irish clan were doomed.[21]
Family tree
Family tree of the Irish O'More clan
Murtagh O’More Lord of Laois
Conn O’More fl. 1520
Conall O'More died 1537 Lord of Laois, 1523-1537
Gormflaith O'Carroll
Peter O'More Lord of Laois, 1537-1538
Lysaght O'More died 1537 Lord of Slemargy
Kedagh Ruadh O'More died 1542 Lord of Laois, 1538-1542
Heitzler, Michael James (2005). Goose Creek, A Definitive History: Volume One, Planters, Politicians and Patriots. The History Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-59629-055-6. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
Conn Bacagh O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone was an Irish lord who ruled over Tyrone from 1519 to 1558. In 1541 O'Neill travelled to England to submit to Henry VIII as part of the surrender and regrant policy that coincided with the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland. He was made Earl of Tyrone, but his plans to pass the title and lands on to a chosen successor Matthew were thwarted by a violent succession dispute that led to another son, Shane O'Neill, emerging triumphant.
Dunamase or the Rock of Dunamase is a rocky outcrop in County Laois, Ireland. Rising 46 metres (151 ft) above a plain, it has the ruins of Dunamase Castle, a defensive stronghold dating from the early Hiberno-Norman period with a view across to the Slieve Bloom Mountains. It is near the N80 road between the towns of Portlaoise and Stradbally.
The kings of Osraige reigned over the medieval Irish kingdom of Osraige from the first or second century AD until the late twelfth century. Osraige was a semi-provincial kingdom in south-east Ireland which disappeared following the Norman Invasion of Ireland. A number of important royal Ossorian genealogies are preserved, particularly MS Rawlinson B502, which traces the medieval Mac Giolla Phádraig dynasty back through Óengus Osrithe, who supposedly flourished in the first or second century. and one in the Book of Leinster. Recent analysis of ninth and tenth century regnal succession in Osraige has suggested that in peaceful times, kingship passed primarily from eldest to youngest brother, before crossing generations and passing to sons and nephews.
Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormond, 1st Earl of Ossory also known as Red Piers, was from the Polestown branch of the Butler family of Ireland. In the succession crisis at the death of Thomas Butler, 7th Earl of Ormond he succeeded to the earldom as heir male, but lost the title in 1528 to Thomas Boleyn. He regained it after Boleyn's death in 1538.
Fiach mac Aodha Ó Broin was Chief of the Name of Clann Uí Bhroin and Lord of Ranelagh during the Elizabethan wars against the Irish clans.
During the Tudor conquest of Ireland (c.1540–1603), "surrender and regrant" was the legal mechanism by which Irish clans were to be converted from a power structure rooted in clan and kin loyalties, to a late-feudal system under the English legal system. The policy was an attempt to incorporate the clan chiefs into the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland, and to guarantee their property under English common law, as distinct from the traditional Irish Brehon law system. This strategy was the primary non-violent method for Crown officials in the Dublin Castle administration to subjugate Irish clan leaders during the conquest. It was an unanticipated consequence to be required to pay fealty in currency instead of trade labor or commodities. The process of "surrender and regrant" thus created new, unfamiliar debt structures among the Irish, and these debts had social and political consequences.
Sir Rory O'Moore, also known Sir Roger O'Moore or O'More or Sir Roger Moore, was an Irish landowner, and is most notable for being one of the four principal organisers of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.
The Second Desmond Rebellion (1579–1583) was the more widespread and bloody of the two Desmond Rebellions in Ireland launched by the FitzGerald Dynasty of Desmond in Munster against English rule. The second rebellion began in July 1579 when James FitzMaurice FitzGerald landed in Ireland with a force of Papal troops, triggering an insurrection across the south of Ireland on the part of the Desmond dynasty, their allies, and others who were dissatisfied for various reasons with English government of the country. The rebellion ended with the 1583 death of Gerald FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond, and the defeat of the rebels.
The massacre of Mullaghmast was the mass killing of between 100 and 400 members of the Gaelic nobility of Ireland by English forces under the command of Sir Henry Sidney in Mullaghmast, County Kildare in either late 1577 or 1 January 1578. There is limited surviving documentation on the massacre, although documents have recently been made available at the National Library of Ireland.
Barnaby Fitzpatrick (c.1478–1575) was the last person to have claim to the kingship of Osraige; forfeiting his ancestral title in favour of being created the first Lord Baron Upper Ossory by King Henry VIII of England, by patent dated 11 June 1541, as part of the King's policy of Surrender and regrant. Barnaby Fitzpatrick was subsequently knighted on 1 July 1543.
Events from the year 1580 in Ireland.
Richard Tyrrell was an Anglo-Irish Lord of Norman ancestry who commanded rebel Irish forces in the Irish Nine Years War, most notably at the Siege of Kinsale. He was considered one of Hugh O'Neill's most accomplished allies.
Lord of Laois is a title that belonged to the historical rulers of the Kingdom of Laois in Ireland. It was held by the O'More family and later the More O'Ferralls who ruled the kingdom. The title is first recorded as existing in 1016, in the Annals of the Four Masters. After the O'Mores were dispossessed of their lands in the 16th century, they left Laois, after 600 years. Despite this, they continued to hold the title.
Rory Caoch O'More was an Irish noble. He ruled as Lord of Laois until his death in 1547 at the hand of his brother Giolla Pádraig O'More.
Giolla Pádraig O'More, also spelt Giollapádraig, anglicised Gilla-Patrick, was an Irish noble. He was Lord of Laois from 1547 until his death in 1548.
Giolla Pádraig O'More, anglicised Gillapatrick, was a medieval Irish nobleman. He was Lord of Laois from about 1398 until his death in 1420.
Brian O'Connor Faly, also called Bernard, was an Irish noble and Lord of Offaly.
Owny MacRory O’More was an Irish chieftain and rebel.
Calvagh O'More, also known as Callagh, The Calough or Charles, was an Irish-born landowner of noble ancestry.
The Lord of Slemargy was a title held by Irish Gaelic nobility, specifically the O'More and McMurrough families.
1 2 Clare Carroll, Circe's Cup: Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Writing about Ireland (Cork, 2001), pp. 73-4: Ian Grimble, The Harington Family (New York, 1957), p. 130: Thomas Park, Nugae Antique by Sir John Harington, vol. 1 (London, 1804), pp. 267-8: Orlando Furioso in English heroical verse, by Sr Iohn Harington of Bathe Knight (London, 1607), book 12 note.
↑ ‘The villainous rebel (Rory Oge O'More) fell upon my most dear nephew, being tied in chains and him most shamefully hacked and hewed with my nephew's own sword, to the effusion of such a quantity of blood as were incredible to be told. He brake his arm with that blunt sword and cut off the little finger of one of his hands, and in sundry parts of his head so wounded him as I myself in his dressing did see his brain moving.’’’(Calendar of Carew Papers, 1575, p. 356.)
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