O'BY
Lorraine. In 1651 he was shut up in Limerick when invested by Ireton, and was cfeaseless in his exertions to mitigate the horrors of the siege. On the surrender of the city, he was one of the number excepted from amnesty by the victorious Parliamentarians, and was accordingly executed on the 31st of October. We are told that " he went with joy to the place of execution, and then, with a serene coun- tenance, turning to his Catholic friends who stood in the crowd, inconsolable and weeping, he said to them : ' Hold firmly by your faith and observe its precepts ; murmur not against the arrangements of God's providence, and thus you will save your souls. Weep not at all for me, but rather pray that in this last trial of death I may, by firmness and constancy, attain my heavenly reward.' The head of the martyr was struck oflF, and placed on a spike on the tower." Two other Dominicans, Fathers John Collins and James Wolf, were exe- cuted at the same time. ■'
O'Byrne, Fiagh Mac Hugh, chief of that sept of the O'Byrnes called Graval- Eannall. His father, Hugh, who died in 1579, was far more powerfvd than The O'Byrne, and possessed a large tract of territory in the County of Wicklow. Upon the death of The O'Byrne, in 1580, Fiagh, who resided at Ballinacor, in Glenmalure, became the leader of his clan, and one of the most formidable of the Irish chieftains. In 1580 he joined his forces to those of Lord Baltinglass, and defeated Lord Grey in Glenmalure [see Grey, Sir Arthur]. After holding out in the rocky fastnesses of his principality for several years, he was, in 1595, driven up Glenmalure, and BaUinacor was occupied by an Anglo-Irish garrison. He then made terms, but seized the first opportunity of driving out the garrison and razing the fort. He was killed in a skirmish with the forces of the Lord-Dep^- '.y, in May 1 597, and his head was impaled on Dublin Castle. The family estates were confirmed to his son, Felim, by patent of Queen Elizabeth, but he was ultimately deprived of them by the perjury and juggling of adventurers under James I., and although, in 1 628, acquitted of all the charges brought against him, he was turned out upon the world a beggar. The genealogy of the different branches of the O'Byrnes, and the fate of Felim's descen- dants, will be found stated in the notes to Dr. Donovan's Four Masters, under the years 1578, 1580, and 1597. '35196233
O'Carolan, Turlough, a well-known
harper, was born at Nobber, County of
Meath, in 1670, on the lands wrested
from his ancestors at the Anglo-Norman
372
O'CA
invasion. Blinded in infancy by the small- pox, he discovered considerable musical genius, which was cultivated by his family. He married early, and settled on a farm at Mosshill, in the County of Leitrim; but both he and his wife were unthrifty, and consimied their substance in extrava- gant living, and O'Carolan was obliged to become an itinerant harper. His great taste and feeling in music ensured him a welcome at the houses of the gentry, and he composed many beautiful airs ; but the words he attempted to wed to them, if we may judge from the English translations, were rude and almost barbarous in their composition. It is said that he preferred Italian to all other music. He did not learn English tiU late in life, and indeed never spoke it with fluency. In his later years O'Carolan fell into intemperate habits, which hastened his death, in March 1 738, at the age of 67. His remains were interred at Kilronan, in the County of Fermanagh. A visitor to the spot in 1785 writes : " I stood over poor Carolan's grave, covered wuth a heap of stones ; and I found his skull in a niche near the grave, perfo- rated a little in the forehead, that it might be known by that mark." A collected edition of O'Carolan's music was pub- lished in 1 747, and another in 1 780. He was held in extravagant esteem in Ireland through the last century. Walker, in his Irish Bards, writing in 1786, says : "The spot on which his cabin stood will . . . be visited at a future day with as much true devotion by the lovers of natural music, as Stratford-upon-Avon and Binfield are by the admirers of Shakespeare and of Pope." Lady Morgan left funds for a tab- let to his memory, which has recently been erected in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. An interesting though somewhat acrimo- nious discussion relative to his life and works, his portraits, and his skull, will be found in Notes and Queries, 4th Series. O'Carolan left six daughters, and one son who studied music, and taught the Irish harp in London. ^ =54(4)
O'Carroll, Margaret, "Margaret-an- Einigh" — (Margaret the Hospitable), was bom early in the 15 th century, and mar- ried Calvagh O'Conor, chief of Offaly. The Four Masters speak of her as "the best woman of her time in Ireland." " She was the only woman that has made most of preparing highways, and erecting bridges, churches, and mass-books, and of all manner of things profitable to serve God and her soul," says MacFirbis, the chronicler. It was her custom twice each year to give a sumptuous entertainment to the bards and the poor. D'Arcy McGee has written two
