M'Dermot of Moylurg had held aloof or openly opposed him. To gain M'Dermot's support, or to get him into his power, was of no small consequence to Cathal; and in the year 1320, a meeting was arranged between them, when a reconciliation took place, and M'Dermot submitted and returned to his own country. This peace was shortly after broken by Cathal, who, finding an opportunity for doing so, treacherously took M'Dermot prisoner, and also made a prisoner of his wife. Whether M'Dermot ever recovered his liberty is not stated, but his spirit was broken by this arrest and treachery, and two years after, in 1322, he died.

During all this time, the deposed chieftain, Turlough, who naturally regarded Cathal as a usurper, was waiting for an opportunity to be revenged for his wrongs, and of regaining what he considered his rightful inheritance The opportunity at length arrived; and in 1325, Cathal, described as "the most energetic, the most successful, and best man of his time," was slain by Turlough, who immediately reassumed the sovereignty.

CHAPTER XII.

TURLOUGH, SON OF HUGH, SON OF OWEN O'CONOR.

A.D. 1324-1345.

URLOUGH, the brother of Felim, had been proclaimed King of Connaught in 1317; but, as related above, was deposed in the following year. After his restoration in 1324, little is recorded regarding him for some years, from which we may safely conclude that those years were years of peace. One cause for this may be found in the fact, that William de Burgh, or Burke, as he now called himself, formerly "a great disturber of Connaught," died in the same year in which Turlough O'Conor was reinstated; and two years later, the great Earl of Ulster also died, followed shortly after by Bermingham, Earl of Louth, the conqueror of Felim and of Bruce.

In the year 1327 took place the deposition of Edward II., King of England, which is thus recorded in the Annals :

"A war broke out between the King of England and his queen, who was daughter of the King of France, and she dethroned the king, and her son assumed the sovereignty against his father, in his seventeenth year, at his mother's instigation, and was crowned by the council of England."

The change in the government in England produced little or no effect, and was scarcely noticed in Connaught, where the authority of the English king had now almost entirely disappeared. At this time, the Irish chieftains and rulers had assumed, in the greater part of Ireland, all their ancient rights and privileges, and paid little attention to what was passing in England. With the resumption of these rights, all the old feuds and family quarrels appear to have revived, intensified by the additional sources of discord afforded by the animosities between the English settlers and the native chiefs. These settlers,

Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1327.

and especially the De Burghs, were now firmly established in the country, and had become more Irish than the Irish themselves, copying the latter even in their family feuds; and between different members of the De Burgh family disastrous conflicts were carried on.

In the year 1328 the tranquillity which prevailed throughout Connaught was disturbed by an attack made on Turlough O'Conor by Walter, the son of the above-named William Burke. On this occasion, the head of that family, the Earl of Ulster, who was styled the "Brown Earl," supported Turlough, who was also assisted by Murtough O'Brien, the provincial ruler of the Irish in Munster.

For some years, in consequence of this, a most destructive conflict raged. in Connaught. Walter Burke, one of the most daring of the Anglo-Irish chiefs, continued to harass and attack the Irish ruler, O'Conor; and in 1330, aided by the M'Donoughs, he defeated him, and obliged him to fly. Burke then determined to assume the sovereignty himself, and for this purpose collected all the English and Irish forces over which he had any control; but this attempt to constitute himself the ruler of the native Irish was too much for the older chieftains to put up with; and M'Dermot and others having joined with O'Conor, Burke was defeated, and obliged to accept terms of peace.

Meanwhile, the hostility between the two branches of the family of De Burgh continued. We have seen that the Earl of Ulster assisted O'Conor against his kinsman; and when M'Dermot and O'Conor had succeeded in defeating Walter, he took him prisoner, and conveyed him to the Castle of Innishowen, in Donegal, where he allowed him to perish by starvation. In the following year the Brown Earl himself was slain by the English of Ulster; and the English who perpetrated this deed were, in the words of the annalists, put to death in an extraordinary manner by the people of the King of England. Some were hanged, others were shot, and others were torn asunder to avenge his death."

How little authority the King of England possessed in Connaught at this time appears not only from these wars, which were carried on without his sanction, but also from the returns made to the English Exchequer of the receipts of tribute from that country.

John Morin, styled the "Escheator of Ireland," reports, in the accounts for the years 1330 to 1334, as follows:

From "the possessions of the king, Richard de Ex., junior, answers 'Nihil,' for that Tyrdalagh O'Conghyer, prince of the Irish of Connaught, and

Cathal his brother, and other Irish who are in rebellion against the king, occupy and hold the said lands, so that the king's officials can get no profit out of them."1

After the defeat and death of Walter Burke, his cause was taken up by his brother and successor, Edmund, between whom and the reigning ruler, Turlough, conflicts continued to arise until 1338, when O'Conor expelled him from Connaught. This Edmund Burke, shortly before his discomfiture, had taken prisoner the son of the Earl of Ulster, and having tied a stone round his neck, had him thrown into Lough Mask, and drowned like a dog, to which "foul deed" the chroniclers of the day attributed all his subsequent misfortunes; for "having been expelled from his estates, he remained leading a roving life in ships and boats off the west coast of Ireland."

Previously to this, in 1330, the Clann Costello, who inhabited that portion of the country now included in the eastern part of the county of Mayo, rebelled against O'Conor, and disputed his authority; upon which Hugh, the son of Felim, and nephew of Turlough, assisted by M'Dermot of Moylurg, destroyed their castle of Castlemore Costello, and brought them. under subjection.

In the year 1336 the King of England endeavoured to reassert his authority; and for this purpose sent over John de Wogan, with orders "to proceed to Connaught and to hold converse with O'Conor." Nothing appears to have resulted from this conference, and Turlough most probably was at the time too much engaged in his conflicts with Burke to give any other question much attention.

In the year 1339 he became divorced from his first wife, Derbalia, the daughter of Hugh O'Donnell, prince of Tyrconnell, and he subsequently married the daughter of O'Brien and widow of the son of the Earl of Ulster. Shortly after this, he took his nephew Hugh, the son of Felim, prisoner, and confined him in the castle of Roscommon, which had at this time passed into the possession of the Irish. This attack upon the liberty of Hugh, the son of Felim, who was considered by many as the next rightful heir to Connaught, led to new disturbances, in the course of which Turlough himself was deposed, and Hugh, the son of Hugh Breifnach O'Conor, one of the "Clann Murtough," was set up in his place, the right of succession to him being guaranteed to Hugh, the son of Felim.

'Pipe Rolls, Bermingham Tower, Dublin Castle, Vol. II., 1330-1334

2 Pipe Rolls, Bermingham Tower, Dublin Castle, Vol. II., 1336.
Irish Synchronisms, Ashburnham collection.

This arrangement, it is scarcely necessary to say, was soon disputed. A few months after it had been entered into, Turlough O'Conor, having obtained the aid of O'Rourke and M'Rannell, overcame his opponents, expelled the "Clann Murtough" from Connaught, and no more was heard of the sovereignty of the son of Hugh Breifnach.

Two years later, Turlough O'Conor was killed in an expedition against the same "Clann Murtough," having been struck by a javelin.

Thus ended the stirring reign of this prince, who had been twice deposed, and twice reinstated. He had been married twice. He left two daughtersone named Finola, married to O'Kelly, whose monument is in the Abbey of Knockmoy; and one named Una, married to O'Reilly. He also left two sons, Hugh and Rory, both of whom were subsequently rulers of the Irish in Connaught.