sept and others; and completely out of patience despatched force after force against him. And with that unthinking obstinacy which persists in adopting the same hard and fast methods of warfare that have ever proved unavailing in a struggle of this nature he sent detachment after detachment of heavy cavalry into bogs and glens and mountain passes, where they were at the mercy of the foe. And thus the flower of the English host found a grave in the bogs and woods of Offaly. Sir Henry Harrington with 3,000 men, were defeated so frequently by the O'Connors, O'Moores and O'Tooles that the earl decimated his brave but badly led soldiers for their cowardice, but really for his own folly, pour encourager les autres. Such an action, unsoldierlike and brutal, was in keeping with much of his strange conduct.

The last we see of this famous sept is in a hot encounter with the English of Meath and the Connaught men under Owen O'Connor. The latter were suddenly attacked, as they were plundering a small town, Giolla Bindhe, in Cluain-ni-Murrois, near Geashill, and not expecting opposition were taken unawares. It was, indeed, a case of a hundred flying at the rebuke of one, for it would appear that the Calvach, the heir of Offaly, had only a few men at his heels when he came upon the spoilers. An incident is said to have occurred at this juncture which shows that the Irish grasp of a humourous situation was then, as now racy of the soil. As the Calvach rode into the town where the kerne of Connaught were busy with their plunder, an hotel proprietor, who had borrowed a cauldron from him, ran up and pointing to one of the spoilers who was carrying off a bronze cauldron on his back,

said, "There is your cauldron, you can have it now, kerne and all." "I accept it," said the Calvach, and taking aim with a large stone he hurled it at the man, and the stone struck the bronze with such a crash that the Connaughtmen thought they were surrounded and fled in confusion. But the Calvach was at their heels and smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter between Giolla Bindhe and Cluain-Aine in Crioch-na-gedoch in Westmeath. The night came to the rescue of the vanquished, and the victors returned with the chief religious emblem of Connaught, the Buacach Phatraig or mitre of Patrick, which had always been kept at Elphin until that ill-fated expedition of Owen O'Connor. The last warlike action recorded of the clan is the invasion of the English Offaly and the burning down of many of the castles of the English, in revenge for which the Lord Justice went down to Offaly in August of 1600, as the Four Masters say, "with many harrows, great iron rakes and a great deal of scythes and sickles, and cut down and destroyed the crops of the country, ripe and unripe." After this cruel action the fighting clan disappears as a clan from history, although many distinguished men, including the late Judge O'Connor Morris of Gortnamona, in recent times, represent them worthily. And individuals now and then emerge from the obscurity that has lowered upon their house, evincing the military genius and ability of the warrior clan, which have not been diminished by untoward circumstances or unkind fortune. Not the least among them was Arthur O'Connor, the friend of Grattan and Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

It has been observed that the Irish annalists devoted

themselves almost completely to "feats of broil and battle," and bestowed but little attention upon the social and literary progress of their nation. This was due to the unhappy divisions of Ireland. The annalist confined himself to the glories and triumphs of his own tribe, reserving his spleen and wrath for their enemies, Irish and English. The Book of Leinster, for instance, depreciates the men of Connaught and Munster, while it magnifies the deeds of the Leinstermen. One grows wearied of these blood-stained annals which give as distorted a view of Irish humanity as the Records of Newgate would give of English morality.

It is, therefore, a pleasant change to read of the gentler pursuit of learning and law, which were encouraged by those very chieftains who are paraded as very monsters by the admiring historians of their tribe. In the Annals of Duald MacFirbis, cited by Dr. O'Donovan, there is an account of two entertainments given by Margaret, the wife of O'Conor Faily in 1451 to the learned men of Ireland. At Killeigh "there gathered the number of 2,700 persons, as it was recorded in a roll for that purpose, and that account was made thus :-The chief kindred of each family of the learned Irish was written in the roll by O'Connor's chief judge, and his adherents and kinsmen, so that the aforesaid number of 2,700 was listed in that Roll with the arts of poetry, music and antiquity. Every one as he was paid was written in that Roll for fear of mistake, and was set down to eat afterwards. The hostess, Margaret, was in the gallery of the great church of Da Sinchall (the two Sinchalls, Sean-Sinchell and Sinchell-og), clad in cloth of gold,

L

her dearest friends about her, her clergy and judges too. Her husband, Calvach O'Connor, himself on horseback, by the church's outward side, to the end that all things might be done orderly and each one served successively. And first of all she gave two chalices of gold as offerings that day on the altar to God Almighty, and she also caused to nurse or foster two young orphans. A second feast given on the festival of the Assumption is described as being "nothing inferior to the first day.”

Nor is the fighting clan without its religious associations. Killeigh Abbey, the church of the field, founded in the sixth century by S. Sincheall, was and is the favourite resting-place of all who boast the O'Connor name. The ruins of the original building are still to be seen. The roof is of rough hewn stones. Here the most warlike of the O'Connors, O'Connor Faily, established a monastery for Franciscan Friars. Here Murrough O'Connor, the bravest of the race, who had taken the Sheriff of Meath prisoner, was interred after gaining "the victory over the world and the devil." Here Margaret, "the best woman of her time in Ireland, for it was she who gave two general entertainments of hospitality in the one year to the poor" (Four Masters) was buried. Here Fionngula, daughter of Calvach O'Connor, the most beautiful of the O'Connors, took the veil and lived for forty-nine years "in a chaste, honourable, pious and devout manner." Here in the cemetery of the church of the field that nestles under the long ridge, repose all that is mortal of the princes and princesses of the fighting clan of the O'Connors of Offaly.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RISE OF THE O'CARROLLS AND O'MULLOYS.

THE O'Carrolls of Ely are another of the fighting clans who made the subjugation of Ireland an extremely difficult task to the English Lord Deputies and settlers. Though they never succeeded in bagging a Viceroy and keeping him prisoner until a ransom and hostage were given for him, they displayed a certain amount of natural taste for warfare that was extremely disagreeable to their more peaceably disposed neighbours. It is true that we do not find them carrying on long and organised campaigns like their friends in Offaly, but sallying from their strong castles—their "small piles of little importance, the chiefest whereof is Limwaddon," as Dimmock describes them in his Treatise on Ireland (1600), they were able to inflict many a crushing blow on their adversaries.

Ely O'Carroll, to call the clan by its proper name, derived its descent and domain from Eile or Ely, seventh in line from Cian or Kian, a son of the famous Oliol Ollum, King of Mumha, now known as Munster, for Moonster (Mumhan-stadr), the place of Mumha. According to O'h-Uidhrin Ely O'Carroll was divided into eight tuatha or districts, over which O'Cearbhaill or O'Carroll was the ruling chief. The territory of Ely is almost coterminous with that part of the King's County which belongs to the diocese of Killaloe, and includes the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybritt. Ikerrin and Elyogarty, in Tipperary, were detatched