Shane O'Neill

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Seán Ó Néill (c. 1530 - June 2, 1567; known in English as Shane O'Neill, also known as Shane the Proud) was an Irish chieftain of the O'Neill clan of Ulster in the mid 16th century. Shane O'Neill's career was marked by his ambition to be The O'Neill - chief of the O'Neills. This brought him into conflict with competing branches of the O'Neill family and with the English government in Ireland, who recognised a rival claim. Shane's support was considered worth gaining by the English even during the lifetime of his father Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone (died 1559). But rejecting overtures from Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, the lord deputy from 1556, Shane refused to help the English against the Scottish settlers on the coast of Antrim, allying himself instead with the MacDonnells, the most powerful of these immigrants.

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Feuding Within the O'Neill Lordship

The English, since the late 1530s, had been expanding their control over Ireland, this century long effort is known as the Tudor re-conquest of Ireland. To incorporate the native Irish Lordships, they granted English titles to Irish Lords - thus making Conn Bacach O'Neill, Shane's father, the first Earl of Tyrone. However, whereas in Gaelic custom, the successor to a chieftain was elected from his kinsmen, the English insisted on succession by the first born son or primogeniture. This created a conflict between Shane, who wanted to be Chief and the Earl's elder but illegitimate son, Matthew or Fear Dorcha O'Neill (his eldest son Phelim Caoch O'Neill was killed on a raid in 1542).

Shane's mother Sorcha, Tyrone's second wife, was born the daughter of Hugh Boy O'Neill of Clanaboy. She died shortly afterwards and Shane was fostered by the Donnelly family, who raised him until his early teenage years. Conn O'Neill's illegitimate son Matthew was chosen to be raised at the English court and declared heir to Conn over Shane. On his father's death, Matthew became Baron of Dungannon. He was murdered by Shane, and the title passed to Brian, Matthew's son, who was then also murdered by Shane. In 1562, the title passed to Matthew's youngest son Hugh O'Neill who had been taken to safety in the Pale by Sir Henry Sidney in 1559, stayed at the English court and was protected there while Shane established his supremacy in Ulster.

Having eliminated his rivals, Shane made himself The O'Neill. While in English law this was an illegal usurpation, according to Gaelic Irish custom, Shane had just as good a claim to be The O'Neill as any of his rivals.

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Relationship with the English

Although Shane had allied himself with the Scottish MacDonnell clan, who had settled in Antrim, against the English, Queen Elizabeth, on succeeding to the English throne in 1558, inclined to come to terms with Shane, who after his father's death functioned as de facto chief of the formidable O'Neill clan. She accordingly agreed to recognize his claims to the chieftainship, thus throwing over Brian O'Neill, son of the murdered Matthew, baron of Dungannon, if Shane would submit to her authority and that of her deputy. O'Neill, however, refused to put himself in the power of Sussex without a guarantee for his safety; and his claims in other respects were so exacting, that Elizabeth consented to measures being taken to subdue him and to restore Brian.

An attempt to foment the enmity of the O'Donnells against him was frustrated by Shane's capture of Calvagh O'Donnell, whom he kept a close prisoner for nearly three years. Elizabeth, whose prudence and parsimony were averse to so formidable an undertaking as the complete subjugation of the powerful Irish chieftain, desired peace with him at almost any price; especially when the devastation of his territory by Sussex brought him no nearer to submission. Sussex, indignant at Shane's request for his sister's hand in marriage, and his demand for the withdrawal of the English garrison from Armagh, received no support from the Queen, who sent the earl of Kildare to arrange terms with O'Neill. The latter, making some trifling concessions, consented to present himself before Elizabeth.

Accompanied by the Irish Earls of Ormonde and Kildare, he reached London on January 4 1562. William Camden describes the wonder which O'Neill's wild gallowglasses occasioned in the English capital, with their heads bare, their long hair falling over their shoulders and clipped short in front above the eyes, and clothed in rough yellow shirts. Elizabeth was less concerned with the respective claims of Brian and Shane, the one resting on an English patent and the other on the Gaelic custom, than with the question of policy involved in supporting or rejecting the demands of her proud suppliant. Characteristically, she temporized; but finding that O'Neill was in danger of becoming a tool in the hands of Spanish intriguers, she permitted him to return to Ireland, recognizing him as "The O'Neill" and chieftain of Tyrone; though a reservation was made of the rights of Hugh O'Neill, who had meantime succeeded his brother Brian as baron of Dungannon, Brian having been murdered in April 1562 by his kinsman Turlough Luineach O'Neill.

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War in Ulster

There were at this time three powerful contemporary members of the O'Neill family in Ireland - Shane, Turlough and Hugh, 2nd Earl of Tyrone. Turlough had been elected tainiste or tanist (second and successor) when his cousin Shane was inaugurated as The O'Neill, and he schemed to supplant him in the higher dignity during Shane's absence in London. The feud did not long survive Shane's return to Ireland, where he quickly re-established his authority, and in spite of Sussex renewed his warfare against the O'Donnells and the MacDonnells to force them to recognise O'Neill supremecy in Ulster. Elizabeth at last authorized Sussex to take the field against Shane, but two separate expeditions failed to accomplish anything except some depredation in O'Neill's country.

Sussex had tried in 1561 to procure Shane's assassination, and Shane now laid the whole blame for his lawless conduct on the lord deputy's repeated alleged attempts on his life. Force having ignominiously failed, Elizabeth consented to treat, and hostilities ceased on terms that gave O'Neill practically all his demands.

O'Neill now turned his hand against the MacDonnells, claiming that he was serving the Queen of England in harrying the Scots. He fought an indecisive battle with Sorley Boy MacDonnell near Coleraine in 1564, and the following year marched from Antrim through the mountains by Clogh to the neighbourhood of Ballycastle, where he routed the MacDonnells and took Sorley Boy prisoner.

This victory greatly strengthened Shane O'Neill's position, and Sir Henry Sidney, who became lord deputy in 1566, declared to the earl of Leicester that Lucifer himself was not more puffed up with pride and ambition than O'Neill. Preparations were made in earnest for his subjugation. O'Neill ravaged the Pale, failed in an attempt on Dundalk, made a truce with the MacDonnells, and sought help from the Earl of Desmond. The English, on the other hand, invaded Donegal and restored O'Donnell.

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Defeat and Death

Failing in an attempt to arrange terms, and also in obtaining the help which he solicited from France, O'Neill was utterly routed by the O'Donnells at the battle of Farsetmore near Letterkenny; and seeking safety in flight, he threw himself on the mercy of his enemies, the MacDonnells. Attended by a small body of gallowglass, and taking his prisoner Sorley Boy with him, he presented himself among the MacDonnells near Cushendun, on the Antrim coast. Here, on 2 June 1567, whether by premeditated treachery or in a sudden brawl, he was slain by the MacDonnells, and was buried at Glenarm. The MacDonnells, hoping to ingratiate themselves with the English, who wanted to expel their clan from Ireland, sent O'Neill's severed head to their government in Dublin.

In his private character Shane O'Neill was perceived by the English as a brutal, uneducated savage. He divorced his first wife, a daughter of James MacDonnell, and treated his second, a sister of Calvagh O'Donnell, with gross cruelty in revenge for her brother's hostility; Calvagh himself, when Shane's prisoner, he subjected to continual torture; and Calvagh's wife, whom he made his mistress, and by whom he had several children, endured ill-usage at the hands of her drunken captor, who is said to have married her in 1565.

Shane was succeeded as The O'Neill by his tanist, Turlough Luineach O'Neill. He had many sons, who were known as the MacShanes - the sons of the Shane. They tried to succeed Turlough, but were defeated in another bout of inter-O'Neill warfare in the 1580s by Hugh O'Neill, whose father Mathew and brother Brian had been murdered by Shane.

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Reference

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