O'NE
Shaue O'Neill was about 67 at the time of his death. The English Council directed the Lord-Deputy " not to forget Shane's wife and family if they do humble them- selves." Shane was twice married — to an O'Donnell and a MacCarthy. He left Henry, Con, Art, Hugh, Shane, and two other sons, and a daughter, Alice. His cai'eer cannot be better summed up than by the following remark from Mr. Richey's Lectures on Irish History : " Of all the Celtic chiefs of the i6th century none was so feared and hated by the English as Shane O'Neill. English statesmen of his own time accused him of every public crime and private profligacy. The later writers upon Irish aflfairs have improved upon their predecessors, and in the case of Shaue freely sprinkle their pages with epithets not usual in polite literature. ' Rufl5an' and ' adulterous murdering scoundrel,' are the terms used by Mr. Froude ; but it is obvious that a man who excelled in address and diplomacy the ministers of Elizabeth — who wrote such letters as are stiU pre- served in the state papers — for whose destruction the English Government thrice stooped to assassination — could not have been an ordinary man. So thoroughly has Shane's personal character been black- ened, that the Irish have never attempted to make him a national hero ; and he enjoys the unfortunate position, between the two nationalities, of being defamed by the one, and tacitly repudiated by the other. The peculiar position which he occupies in his- tory is that of the last, if not the only purely Celtic chief, who oflFered a protract- ed and almost successful resistance to the national enemy. His better-known suc- cessor, Hugh O'Neill, was English by education, associations, and habits, and assimied the character of a Celtic chief as the means of gratifj-iug his ambition ; Owen Roe O'Neill was an accomplished Spanish officer, with nothing Irish in him save his origin and family tradition ; but Shane was a thorough Celtic chief, not of the traditional type, but such as centuries of prolonged struggle for existence had made the chieftains of his nation. From his earliest days he had passed his life in civil wars and desperate adventures. A price had ever been set upon his head, and his life was constantly threatened by assassins. He knew that his very exist- ence was an insult to the English govern- ment ; he had great pretensions, and small means to carry them into execution ; he was always involved in a net of intrigue and treachery ; he had fierce passions, and never had learned to regulate them. No possible charge against him has been
O'^E
omitted ; but, though they all contain some element of truth, they are manifestly ex- aggerated, and generally made by men who were themselves, with less excuse, open to similar imputations. He is a mur- derer; but he slew rivals set up by the English government, one of whom had already attempted his life ; and the accu- sation is made by those who had themselves no scruple in attempting his assassination. He was bloodthirsty and merciless ; but he never perpetrated such cruelties as the contemporai-y Earls of Desmond and Or- mond were guilty of — crimes dropped out of sight by English writers. He was false and treacherous ; but he only lied and in- trigued more skilfully than his English opponents. He had little regard for the sanctity of matrimony, and was profligate in his life ; he was not much worse than his own father, or the Burkes of Con- naught, and was almost the contemporary of Henry VIII. and Henry IV. He was a drunkard ; he indulged in deep carouses, and drank like the Scotch chiefs of the succeeding centvu-y. He was a tyrant ; the inhabitants of the Pale fled from the English rule to his protection, and his ter- ritory, when Sir Henry Sidney penetrated it, is stated to have been 'so well inhabited as no Irish county in the realm was like it.' He is described as barbarous in his manners ; but he held his own in the Court of Elizabeth." '^ '*> °* '?" =^* 3..
O'Neill, Turlough Luiueacli, ne- phew of Con Bacagh, and the great rival of his cousin, Hugh O'Neill (Earl of Ty- rone), was, after Shane's murder in 1567, inaugurated The O'Neill. In 1570 he compassed the death of some of the prin- cipal MacSweenys. In 15 81 he attacked and humbled the O'Reillys, in retaliation for their having imprisoned some of his cousins. In the month of July of the same year he was engaged in hostilities with the O'Donnells. "The Four Masters say : "A furious and desperate battle was fought between them ; and the celebrated proverb was verified on this occasion, i.e., ' Lively is each kinsman when fighting against the other.' " In 1 585 he went to Dublin to attend the Parliament that as- sembled on 26th April, but does not ap- pear to have taken his seat, as his name is not on the official list. It was Elizabeth's intention to have created him Earl of Clan O'Neill and Baron of Clogher ; but the patent was never perfected. Probably it was at this time that, encumbered with his fashionable English garments, he ex- pressed his discontent to Perrot with good-natured simplicity : " Prithee, my lord, let my chaplain attend me in his 409
