his forces, and marching to Ballintober, destroyed the bawn, and then proceeded to Ballaghcullia, where he received the hostages of the people.1

Felim Finn did not long survive these exploits. He died on Easter Monday, in 1490, and was interred in the burial-place of his ancestors, in Roscommon. He is described in the Irish Annals as "a brave and warlike man, who had spread the fame of his name through every territory around him, and a man whom the Sil Murray expected to have united all Connaught." After his death his son Rory was inaugurated as his successor. Described as a man “happy in peace and valiant in war," and as “having lived a long and well-spent life," he died in 1492, and was buried in Tulsk.

In 1497, O'Donnell having attacked M'Dermot of Moylurg, all the O'Conors appear to have united in the defence of the latter, and their allied forces defeated O'Donnell. These incessant conflicts and disturbances between the Irish chiefs produced their natural effect upon the country. The crops being each year destroyed, " an awful famine" arose, "so that people ate food such as was not fit to be mentioned, or was never served on dishes for human Disease followed in the track of hunger, and the province of Connaught seemed to be delivered over to the three plagues of war, famine, and pestilence. Yet the former of these plagues ceased not. Wars and civil strife flourished in the midst of the other terrible calamities.

In 1499, Garret, Earl of Kildare and Lord Justice of Ireland, marched an army into Connaught, took Athleague from O'Kelly, and the castle of Tulsk from the tribe of Felim Cleragh O'Conor, and also the castles of Roscommon and Castlerea. And having delivered the hostages which he had taken to Hugh O'Conor Don," the second Lord over Connaught," he returned again to

Leinster.

This interposition on his behalf by the Lord Justice rendered Hugh O'Conor Don very unpopular with his own countrymen. He was shortly after expelled across the Shannon by M'Dermot, with the general consent of the Sil Murray, but was subsequently reinstated through the instrumentality of M'William Burke, who gave him the castle of Tulsk, and made terms with M'Dermot.

After this Hugh O'Conor appears to have withdrawn from public life. His name is not subsequently mentioned, and when he died or was removed from the chieftaincy is a matter of uncertainty; but as it is recorded that a

'Annals of the Four Masters. Ballaghcullia, a townland close to present town of Belanagare, county Roscommon. Annals of the Four Masters. Annals of the Four Masters. 'Annals of the Four Masters.

certain Turlough Oge O'Conor was "O'Conor Don," and died in Ballintober after a long illness, in 1503, it would appear that Hugh must have died at an earlier period.1

THE CASTLE OF ROSCOMMON.

The castle of Roscommon, above alluded to as having been taken by the Earl of Kildare in 1499, although originally built by the English, had, long anterior to the period at which we have now arrived, passed into the possession of the O'Conors. It had been the object of contention for many years; first between the English and the Irish, and subsequently between the two rival clans of O'Conor Don and O'Conor Roe.

First erected by the English justiciary, Robert de Ufford, in 1269,2 when Hugh O'Conor, the King of Connaught, was ill, it was destroyed by him, on his recovery, in 1272, and shortly after re-erected, to be destroyed again, in 1276, by the same Hugh, the son of Felim.

It was again rebuilt in 1276; and, from this date, until far into the next century, it remained in the hands of the English, and was one of their principal strongholds in Ireland. It appears from an entry in the English State Papers that the castle was originally built upon land belonging to the friary of Dominican monks at Roscommon; and in 1276 a fee of fifteen marks was paid "to brother Maurice, Bishop of Elphin, being his fee for the site of the castle of Roscommon."

This brother Maurice, son of Nial O'Conor, was one of the royal house of Connaught, and having first entered the Dominican monastery of Roscommon, was made Bishop of Elphin in the year 1265, and received the royal confirmation in 1266. He was a witness to the deed by which an exchange of land was effected between the king and the prior of the convent of St. Coman in the year 1282, as before related.

The plan of the castle, like Ballintober, consisted of a quadrangle,

1About this time the possession of the castle of Ballintober was in dispute between two members of the O'Conor family; and in 1505 it is recorded that the castle was given to that O'Conor who was the descendant of Grace O'Kelly. Who this was is not clearly defined, nor is it easy to determine whose son was Turlough Oge O'Conor above referred to. The family descent is not, however, in any way affected by this.

* Some Irish writers assert that a castle had been built at Roscommon long anterior to this date, and that De Ufford merely restored it.

'Account of Stephen, Bishop of Waterford, the King's Treasurer in Ireland, of receipts and expenditure between Michaelmas, 1275, and Michaelmas 1276.-Irish Exchequer Papers.

'Ware's Works, by Harris, Vol. I., p. 630.

defended at each angle by a tower. Two others, on the east side, protected the principal entrance. Unlike Ballintober, the towers at Roscommon were rounded on the outer side, whilst the inner parts terminated in different styles. The lower parts of the castle were undoubtedly devoted to defence and the accommodation of the garrison; whilst the upper parts contained the principal habitable apartments. In the lower parts, the walls were doubled; and inner bulwarks, and narrow passages, afforded a safe retreat from any projectiles which might have passed in through the loop-holes. The roof of these parts consisted of thick vaults of stone. In the upper stories the windows were airy and even spacious, and the remains of fire-places are still visible in the walls. The largest windows were not in the highest story, but in the one below, which marks it as having contained the principal apartments. The windows were all rectangular, divided, for the most part, by a Latin cross; but in some cases there were two, three, and even four uprights, dividing the window into small squares, in the style of the age of Queen Elizabeth.1

The grand entrance was not placed in the centre of the eastern side, but nearer to the northern end than to the southern.

On the western side there was another gate of lesser dimensions, which stood higher above the foundations in a rectangular tower or bastion 28 feet in width. This entrance was not placed directly opposite the grand one, but was still nearer to the northern end. If there had ever been a fosse round the castle, it has long since been filled up. That there was such a fosse is almost certain, as, in the ancient records, constant reference is made to the water round the castle, and to a lake in close proximity to it. This lake has also altogether disappeared. Between 1276, when the castle was rebuilt, and 1340, when it had certainly passed into the possession of the O'Conors, numerous entries will be found in the English State Papers of payments made on account of its expenses. In 1282, W. Brun and Nicholas Dod were paid £17 11s. 9d. for "fortifications for castle of Roscommon," and in 1283, John Pasavent, £18 2s. od. for same purpose. In 1285, Gregory de Coquille received

'See account of this castle in Weld's Survey of Co. Roscommon, p. 438.

'O'Donovan, in his letters to Sir Thos. Larcom on the Ordnance Survey, which are preserved in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, says, in reference to this castle and lake :—

"The castle is a very extensive ruin, in tolerable preservation; but in some places modernised by the insertion of large windows. To the west of this castle extended, not many years ago, a lake of considerable extent, called Loch-na-nean, or the Lake of the Birds, from the remarkable number of water birds which used to frequent it. This lake is now entirely dried up, and might be called the turlach of Roscommon."

'See Calendar of State Papers (Sweetman) under the different years