of O'Neill was the gravest blow the Irish cause had received, since the English supremacy in the country had first been established. His head was sent as a trophy to London, to the King of England, and his loss was mourned as irreparable by his countrymen. "There is still extant," says O'Donovan, "a cotemporaneous Irish poem, composed by Gilbride M'Namee, in lamentation of Brien O'Neill and the other Irish chiefs who fell in this battle. In this poem, the bard remarks that the Irish fought at great disadvantage, being clad in satin shirts, whereas their adversaries were protected with coats of mail. He lauds the hospitality and laments the loss of O'Neill, King of Tara, and wails the misfortune of the Irish in losing him. He enumerates the chiefs who fell along with him, amongst whom he sets down Manus O'Cahan as the greatest loss after the king himself."

The success of the English at Drumderg emboldened them to attack the Irish chieftains who had joined O'Neill, and amongst those singled out for vengeance was O'Conor. M'William Burke, his old enemy and chief leader of the English in Connaught, was the first to attack the old King Felim, and proceeding against him, plundered the country until he reached Roscommon. Here he was met by Felim and his son Hugh, who had returned with his forces to Connaught after the disastrous defeat in the north. The Irish troops were sufficiently numerous and well-disciplined to make Burke feel that success against them would be very doubtful, and changing his tactics, he offered to come to terms of peace with the King of Connaught, which offer being accepted, he returned to his own territory, without having accomplished the object of his expedition.

Peace made under such conditions naturally was not lasting. Notwithstanding an appeal made by Felim2 to the King of England in 1261-in which he sets out his own fidelity to his engagements, his grievances against the De Burghs, who had established themselves in the greater part of Galway and Mayo, and the promises made to him of restitution for the losses he had suffered-war again broke out. In 1262, De Burgh, joined by the justiciary, marched against Felim, who being unprepared to meet his adversaries openly in the field, retired to the north-west, towards Ballyshannon, whilst his

1 An ancient Irish MS. copy of this poem is in the possession of the writer of this memoir, and a literal translation of it into English may be found in the Transactions of the Celtic Society Miscellany for 1849, pp. 146-183.

Felim's letter, addressed by him as King of Connaught to the King of England, is preserved in the Tower of London. A facsimile of it is given in Gilbert's Irish MSS., Part II. It is also given in Rymer's Fadera, Vol. I., p. 240, but under a wrong date. See Appendix A.

son Hugh withdrew into Mayo. The English advanced in two divisions. M'William Burke, from the south-west, proceeded across the plains of Connaught to Elphin, whilst the justiciary, Sir Richard de Rupella, and John de Verdon, came from Athlone to Roscommon. Scouting parties were sent out by them through the barony of Ballintobber, and the place for a castle was marked out at Roscommon. Meanwhile Hugh O'Conor was not inactive; he assembled his forces in the north-west of Mayo, and overran the country west of Bella and Mayo, driving out the English settlers wherever they were to be found. Subsequently he proceeded into southern Connaught, devastated the country of his enemy, Burke, and carried all before him from Tuam to Athlone.

Finding their incursion into Connaught on the present occasion so unsuccessful, the English sent envoys to Felim and his son craving peace; and shortly after, a conference was held, at which the terms of peace were agreed upon, but neither party gave hostages to the other. At the conclusion of this conference, Walter M'William Burke and Hugh O'Conor became thoroughly reconciled, passed a night together merrily and amicably, and as a proof of greater friendship, even slept together in the same bed.1

This intimate amity and forgetfulness of the wrongs which each had inflicted on the other was, however, merely assumed, and continued only so long as it suited the purposes of both parties. The very next year after this apparent reconciliation of O'Conor and M'William Burke, the latter marched an army as far as Roscommon to attack Felim and his son, and O'Conor's people were obliged to fly, carrying all their movable property with them.

In retaliation for this 'invasion of his father's country, Hugh O'Conor, having secured the co-operation of O'Donnell, ravaged the whole territory of the De Burghs (known as the territory of Clanricarde) as far as the confines of Thomond, and the fortress of Galway. These mutual depredations were followed in 1264 by another conference, held in Athlone between Felim and his son on the one side, and the justiciary of Ireland, and Maurice Fitzgerald, and the Earl of Ulster, on the other. To this conference the Irish king proceeded in such force and with such state that "the English were much perplexed and dismayed in mind at beholding the Irish forces, and at once sued for peace, which was granted by Felim, and the conditions of which were ratified before they separated."

'Hugh O'Conor and Walter M William Burke were near relatives; the former being the grandson, the latter the great-grandson, of Cathal Crovedearg.

* Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1264.