you think best. I will join in anything you choose or set on foot, any system, as far as I can, that strikes you as likely to succeed. In the meantime I have thrown together hastily a letter to the Catholics of Ireland. After I have cooled on my first impressions, I will print it in the Weekly Register, and send you a paper. I mean to put my name to it. This should not, however, suspend any plan you may form. Pray show your forgiveness by answering this. "I remain, faithfully yours, In the following year, 1819, he wrote: "MY DEAR FRIEND, "DANL. O'Connell." "15th June, 1819. "I am the worst letter-writer in the world, or I should have written to you from circuit. Allow me now to ask whether you can without inconvenience come to town before Saturday next. We have wanted you for some time; but I was unwilling in being instrumental in bringing you from home until the utility of your honesty, conciliatory temper, and respectability became obvious. If you can come up, you will, I think, be the means of a perfect union, &c. "Very faithfully and affectionately, "DANL. O'Connell." "MY DEAR FRIEND, "MERRION SQUARE, 21st October, 1819. "Whose fault will it be if we are not emancipated this session? I think our own. One grand effort now ought to emancipate us, confined as it should be exclusively to our own question. I intend instantly to set the cause in motion. I would to God you would come up at once to help me. If we show out before the Regent's speech is prepared, perhaps we may be mentioned in it. I want you much, and the cause wants you more. "Believe me ever to be, "Your most faithfully and sincerely, "DANL. O'CONNELL. Emancipation was not carried this year, and in the following year he again addressed his friend : "MY DEAR FRIEND, "MERRION SQUARE, 5th May, 1820. "I wish it were your convenience to come to town. We are getting up another struggle, and we, of course, want you. There are so few who honestly and with a clear conscience labour for the ancient faith,' that I feel very lonely when you are not with us. Be so kind as to say whether we may expect you in town. "Believe me to be, with great truth, "DANIEL O'CONNELL." About this time, in the year 1820, Alexander "O'Conor Don" of Clonalis died, leaving no issue. He, as already stated, was the last representative, in the male line, of Hugh Oge O'Conor, the second son of Sir Hugh "O'Conor Don;" and on his death, Owen O'Conor of Belanagare, the representative of Sir Hugh O'Conor's third son, became the head of the family, and accordingly in 1820 was recognised as "O'Conor Don." The Clonalis estates had already passed into his hands in the following manner. Domnick "O'Conor Don," the elder brother of Alexander, had, some years before his death, made a will, by which he left a life interest in those estates to his wife, with reversions to his brothers and their issue male, and, in failure of such issue male, to Owen O'Conor of Belanagare, as next heir to the title. After Domnick's death this will, as mentioned before, was disputed between the widow and Alexander. Protracted and expensive litigation ensued, with the result that a considerable portion of the estates were ordered by the Court of Chancery to be sold for the payment of incumbrances and debts; and in February, 1805, they were put up for sale, and bought by Owen O'Conor, who thus became their owner, even before he succeeded to the title. In 1829 Catholic Emancipation was carried; and immediately afterwards Owen O'Conor Don, who had worked so hard for its accomplishment, was elected by acclamation the first Catholic representative in Parliament for the Co. of Roscommon since the days of King James the First, the last Catholic representative for that county, before the evil days of persecution, having been his ancestor, Sir Hugh O'Conor Don. O'Conor Don did not long survive his first election. Advanced in years when he entered Parliament, the late hours of the House of Commons soon undermined a naturally strong constitution, and he died in June, 1831, immediately after his second unopposed return as representative for the Co. of Roscommon. His services on behalf of his Catholic fellow-countrymen were recognised in more ways than one; and in 1813, several years before it was in their power to elect him as their representative, the Catholics of the Co. of Roscommon presented him with a large and handsome silver cup "as a mark of grateful regard for his disinterested and valuable services in the cause of civil and religious liberty." Owen O'Conor married on the 20th June, 1792, Jane, daughter of Edward Moore, Esq., of Dublin, and had two sons, Denis and Edward, and several daughters, one of whom married Mr. Mapother of Kilteevan, Co. Roscommon. Denis O'Conor, his eldest son, succeeded him in the representation of the county, which he retained until his death in 1847; but as it is not the purpose of this Memoir to bring the family history beyond the date at which we have now arrived, no more fitting ending may perhaps be given to this sketch of Owen O'Conor's career, than by the insertion of the following touching letter written to his son by Daniel O'Connell, on hearing of the death of his dear friend and colleague : "LONDON, 29th June, 1831. father, "MY DEAR O'CONOR, -The death of my most respected and loved friend, your was to me a severe blow. It severed one of the kindliest links which bound me to society. How little does the world know of the value of the public services of men who, like him, held themselves always in readiness, without ostentation or parade, but with firmness and sincerity, to aid in the struggles which nations make for liberty. His part was zealous, persevering, fraught with the purest integrity, and most eminently useful. I really know no one individual to whom the Catholics of Ireland are so powerfully indebted for the successful result of the contest for emancipation. His respectability in private life, the many amiable qualities which even his political enemies were compelled to admire, gave an additional force and value to his public exertions. His was not holiday patriotism, nor did he wait for the favourable gale of popular applause and national exertion to become one of the crew of the ark that bore the destinies of Ireland. No. In the worst of times, and when the storms of calumny and persecution from our enemies, and apathy and treachery from our friends, raged at their height, he was always found at his post, struggling manfully against the evil, and continuing that struggle even when hope itself was almost extinct. His death has made a void-not to be filled upin the ranks of the sincere friends of Ireland. May the great God of Heaven receive him in mercy, and may the affectionate and respectful sorrow of his friends serve as a consolation to those of his own family, who more nearly feel and deplore his loss. My beloved friend he was, and to my own grave shall I carry the soothing recollection of his public and private virtues. "Believe me to be, my dear O'Conor, "Your most faithful and sincere "DANIEL O'CONNELL." UU CHAPTER XXVIII. A.D. 1631-1800. BRIAN O'CONOR, FOURTH SON OF SIR HUGH O'CONOR DON. AVING traced the fortunes of the descendants of the three elder sons of Sir Hugh O'Conor Don, there now remains to be dealt. with the family of his fourth and youngest son, Brian. Upon Brian O'Conor the estates of Beagh, Cloonykearney, and Cloonyvinden, were settled by an indenture bearing date 14th April, 1631,1 and made between Sir Hugh O'Conor Don and his eldest son, Charles, on the one part, and a certain trustee named Turlough O'Teige, for Brian O'Conor, on the other part. As no mention is made in this deed of Brian O'Conor's marriage, it may be presumed that he was not married until a later date. At the time of his father's death, he appears to have been possessed of the lands above mentioned, and to have retained them until after the general confiscation of the lands of Connaught in 1652. Although Brian O'Conor did not take such a prominent part as that taken by his brothers in the struggle in 1641, yet he appears to have been engaged in it, and is referred to in contemporary documents as Captain Brian O'Conor, and sometimes as Brian Ruadh, or Brian the Red. Amongst the depositions taken under the Lord Protector Cromwell, and preserved in the Commonwealth Series, already alluded to, the following, referring to Brian O'Conor, will be found : "Dudley O'Flynn of Ballintober, and Dermot O'Connor of Killtolmy, Athlone, having been sworn, deposed "That Brian O'Connor lived at Beagh in the beginning of the rebellion; that he might have removed to the English garrison, but did not do so; that he supplied victuals to the enemy, and attended public meetings of the enemy at Ballintubber Castle and Castlereagh, two of the garrisons of the enemy.'" When the royal cause had failed, and the commissioners at Athlone and Loughrea held their meetings to determine the claims of transplanted persons, Brian O'Conor was either dead or ineligible. His wife, Mary O'Conor, presented her claim in her own name, and in that of her son Roger, and obtained a decree at Athlone, dated September, 1655, by which she was comprised in the eighth qualification; and by final settlement, of 14th May, 1656, was decreed the lands of Beagh and Cloonykearney to hold during her life, with remainder to her son. Notwithstanding this decree, the lands appear for a time to have got into the hands of strangers, with whom they remained until after the restoration of King Charles II. ROGER O'CONOR, SON OF BRIAN. Like his cousins of Ballintober, Castlereagh, and Belanagare, Roger O'Conor joined the fortunes of King Charles II., and served in the Duke of Gloucester's regiment "beyond the seas." In this regiment he obtained the position of lieutenant, and his name, as such, appears amongst the officers who signed the petition to the king in 1664. Under the Act of Settlement he was restored to his father's estates of Beagh and Cloonykearney, with the exception of a small portion which was left with the Cromwellian settler, named Mathew Simpson. Subsequently, Roger O'Conor adhered to the cause of King James II., and, after his defeat, was attainted of treason. His estates shared in the general forfeiture, and were sold by the Trustees of Forfeited Estates in 1703, and purchased by a Mr. James Walker. OWEN O'CONOR, SON OF ROGER. Owen O'Conor, the son of Roger, subsequently settled at Corrasduna in the Co. of Roscommon; and the following account of his immediate descendants is given in Burke's Landed Gentry, under the families of "O'Conor of Dundermott," and "O'Conor of Milton": "Owen O'Connor of Corrasduna, Co. Roscommon, the common ancestor of the family immediately before us, was, as we have already stated, a descendant of the house of O'Connor. He married Catherine, daughter of Ed. M'Dermot, Esq., of Emla, Co. Roscommon, and dying, in 1766, left four sons and three daughters:-(1) Roderic of Ballycahir; (2) Thomas of Milton; (3) Denis of Willsbrook; (4) Bernard, in holy orders. (i) Catherine, married to Hugh O'Conor, brother of Charles O'Conor of Belanagare; and (ii) Mary, married to Joseph Plunkett, of Castle Plunkett; (iii) Sabina." 'See Appendix M. |