in very pleasing proportion, remain in tolerable preservation; and a fire-place and chimney-piece, with arms bearing the date 1627, appear on the walls of the third story, but the floors of the upper stories have altogether disappeared.

The grand portal to the east was protected by towers rounded at the outer side, but elongated within, like those of Beaumaris Castle, in Wales. The curtain walls between the towers were about 5 ft. 8 in. thick at the height of the great inner court of the castle, but much thicker at the foundation; they were provided with loop-holes and flights of steps, which are still passable. The number of rooms in the four towers was about twelve, and some of them of very fair size.1

The great court or area in the interior of the castle was, according to O'Donovan, at one time probably occupied by inhabited houses, in which the followers of O'Conor resided.

Writing to Sir Thomas Larcom on 1st July, 1837, he says:

It

"To-day I examined the princely ruins of the castle of Ballintober. was a little town in itself, enclosing an area of about one Irish acre. It was nearly a square bawne, defended at the four angles by four towers of respectable strength and size. I spent my whole day climbing its walls and towers, and must now make up for lost time by writing at this late hour (12 o'clock). I examined every hole and corner in it; but as you will have a description of it from the officer who surveyed the district, my unmilitary remarks would be worth nothing. But I can throw out conjectures, which might perhaps never occur to any military man, viz., that the area enclosed by those martial walls was not altogether a blank space for the reception of cattle, but that several houses stood on it. Of this conjecture, the following passage from the Annals of the Four Masters will afford abundant evidence :

"A.D. 1434.-O'Kelly, M'Dermot, and Teige, the son of O'Conor Roe, set out to attack Ballintober; and a battle was fought between them and the people of that town, in which many were wounded, both within and without the town. One of the party who were without took a chip from the end of a wattle which he held in his hand, and having tied this chip to the end of the wattle, he set fire to it, and then cast the wattle into the bawne. It stuck in the side of a house which caught fire, and was burned, as was also the adjoining house, and finally the greater part of the town. The bawne was also burned, and a vast deal of property which was in the town was destroyed and consumed on this occasion.'

"Now I infer from this passage that the walls of the castle of Ballintober, which are very extensive indeed, contained several rows (streets) of houses."

'See Weld's Statistical Survey of Co. Roscommon, p. 383.

'O'Donovan's letters on Ordnance Survey, preserved in Royal Irish Academy.

Other references in the Annals also bear out O'Donovan's conjecture. For instance, we learn that in 1487 the sons of Felim Finn "burned the bawne;" and that subsequently O'Donnell and other chieftains committed like destruction, which would hardly have been possible if the interior space had not been covered with combustible habitations.

From the earliest date at which any reference is made to it in history until its destruction as a habitable residence towards the end of the seventeenth century, Ballintober castle appears to have been, with some slight interruptions, in the possession of the O'Conors, and their principal stronghold. When they divided into the two septs of O'Conor Don and O'Conor Roe, it became the residence of the former. In 1526 we read that Lord Kildare took the castles of Ballintober and Castlerea, and handed them over to O'Conor Roe, from whom they were retaken in the following year by O'Conor Don, aided by O'Donnell.

In 1571 Sir Edward Fytton, Governor of Connaught, again took the castles of Ballintober and Castlerea, and razed the latter to the ground, and Ballintober apparently remained in possession of the English until the year 1581, when the Annals of Loch Cè inform us that "Ballintober, which the Saxons had, was given to Dualtach, son of Toole O'Conor." This Dualtach. was the nephew of O'Conor Don, and had set up in rivalry to him. Apparently the castle did not long remain in Dualtach's possession, as shortly after we find O'Conor Don again in occupation, and there he died in 1585. In this same year the castle and lands adjoining it were surrendered to Queen Elizabeth by his son and successor, Hugh O'Conor Don, who received them back under patent from the English sovereign. In 1598, as is hereafter related, the walls of the castle were battered down by O'Donnell, who, having defeated the English at the battle of the Curlieus, attacked O'Conor Don, and obliged him to surrender. Whether the castle was ever subsequently fully restored is doubtful; but as it appears from an ancient MS. in the Ashburnham collection that a considerable portion of it was rebuilt by Sir Hugh O'Conor after O'Donnel's attack, it is more than probable that he completely restored it-a conclusion borne out by the fact that during the parliamentary wars in the seventeenth century, the castle was considered so strong that the English commanders abstained from attempting to take it. How the castle and an immense territory in the surrounding country were confirmed by patent to Sir Hugh O'Conor Don by King James I., in 1617, and how it became the chief meeting-place of

the Catholics of Roscommon, immediately preceding and during the disastrous civil war of 1641, is all fully narrated later on.1

Charles O'Conor, the grandson of this Sir Hugh, was the last of the O'Conors who resided in Ballintober. Probably when he left it, it ceased to be inhabited, and became the ruin into which pillagers for well-dressed stones speedily converted it. After Charles O'Conor's death it passed into the hands of the Burkes of Portumna. A foolish attempt, made by Alexander O'Conor, of Clonalis, to recover it by force in 1786 led to its sale by its then owners; and under the provisions of a private Act of Parliament, it was sold in the year 1790, and purchased by Mr. Maurice Mahon, of Strokestown House, to whose descendants it now belongs.

'In a description of the county Roscommon, written in 1683, by Mr. Keogh, the MS. of which is in the Royal Irish Academy, he refers to Ballintober as “the royal seat of the Kings of Connaught, of O'Conor Don, whose family was the chief of the O'Conors."

CHAPTER XVI.

A.D. 1476-1503.

OWEN (CAECH) "O'CONOR DON," SON OF FELIM GEANCACH.

A.D. 1474-1485.

ETWEEN the death of Felim O'Conor in 1474, and the death of his son Owen in 1485, little reference is made to the latter in any of the public records of the period, from which we may safely conclude that he was more peacefully inclined than some of his predecessors. He did not inmediately succeed to the chieftaincy after his father's death, as he was in captivity at that time, and, as mentioned above, the O'Conor Don sept was for a short period represented by a certain Teige O'Conor.

This Teige was killed in 1476, when Owen, surnamed Caech, or the short-sighted, assumed the chieftaincy. He married Dervorgilla,' the daughter of Felim Finn, O'Conor Roe, and accordingly we find him and Felim Finn close allies in all the family conflicts which subsequently arose. These conflicts were varied by attacks made by O'Donnell upon O'Conor Sligo and the English, and for several successive years little is recorded in the Irish chronicles save the exploits of O'Donnell.

In 1478 the annalists record that disputes arose "between Felim Finn and O'Conor Don on the one side, and the young sons of Teige O'Conor, the descendants of Felim, and the sons of O'Conor Roe on the other," and Turlough Roe, the son of Roderic, the son of Felim, "a choice son of a king, was slain." At this period the English influence in Connaught was very

'O'Donovan states that this lady was married to Owen's son, Carbry, but this cannot be correct, as she died in 1476, and Carbry was born about the year 1475.

slight. The wars between the houses of Lancaster and York deluged England with blood, and left very little time for attention to the affairs of Ireland. These civil dissensions ended in 1471 by the battle of Tewkesbury, and the death of King Henry VI.; but new troubles shortly after arose in 1483, on the death of King Edward IV., when the newly proclaimed and youthful Edward V. was murdered by his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, who himself fell two years later in the battle of Bosworth.

In the same year, 1485, in which King Henry VII. came to the throne of England, Owen Caech O'Conor died after a long illness. He was, according to the annalists, a "successful and warlike prince," and in these troublesome times maintained the position which had been handed down to him.

HUGH, SON OF HUGH, SON OF TURLOUGH OGE, A.D. 1485. On the death of Owen Caech, his first cousin Hugh, the son of Hugh, who was the recognised chief of the O'Conors from 1439 to 1461, succeeded to the chieftaincy. The friendship and alliance which had subsisted between his predecessor and Felim Finn O'Conor ceased on Hugh's accession, and in 1481 Ballintober Castle, the chief seat of O'Conor Don, was plundered and burned by the sons of Felim Finn. Wiser counsels, however, soon prevailed, peace was made between the combatants, and a portion of territory was assigned to Felim Finn.

In the year 1488, Roderic, the son of O'Conor Don, and Donough. Dubhshuileach O'Conor Roe, both died, and on the death of the latter, Felim. Finn was inaugurated in his place, all the ceremonies of inauguration being gone through, including the placing on his foot of the royal shoe or slipper by M'Dermot, which, as before explained, signified the subjection of the other chieftains to his authority.

Felim Finn's assumption of the full authority of the chieftainship was soon followed by a fresh outbreak of hostilities. His son Turlough was slain in 1489,1 in an encounter near Castlerea, whilst he himself was attacked at Ardkillen, and his own gallowglasses proving unfaithful, he was obliged to fly for protection to O'Kelly in Hy Many. Here he succeeded in reorganizing

'Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 1489. O'Donovan, in a note to this (p. 1168), says: "Caislen Riabhach (Castlerea), i.e., the grey castle,' a small town in the old barony of Ballintober, county Roscommon. By a late Grand Jury arrangement the barony has been called Castlerea, after the little town itself. The castle from which it was named stood on the west side of the town; but no ruins of it are now visible."