Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/MacCarthy, Cormac Laidhir Oge
MACCARTHY, CORMAC LAIDHIR OGE (d. 1536), Irish chieftain, and lord of Muskerry, was son of Cormac Laidhir MacCarthy, lord of Muskerry (d. 1494), by Mary Fitzmaurice, daughter of Edmund, ninth lord of Kerry. He joined the English of Munster in 1510 after the expedition against Limerick, and was subsequently head of the coalition against the Fitzgeralds, which ended in 1520 with the great battle at Mourne, near Mallow. In this engagement MacCarthy, who was in command, entirely routed the Fitzgeralds, and in consequence the Butlers were left supreme in Munster. Soon after the battle Thomas Howard II [q. v.], earl of Surrey (afterwards third duke of Norfolk, 1473–1554), visited Munster, and had an interview with MacCarthy, whom he wished to create a baron. Probably it was to MacCarthy, who had expressed a wish to hold his lands in tail of the crown, that Henry VIII addressed his letter on the state of Ireland, which is printed in ‘State Papers,’ ii. 59. In 1524 MacCarthy defeated O'Conor Kerry, who had made a raid into his territory, and slew O'Conor O'Brien. He died in 1536, and was buried at Kilcrea. Surrey described him as ‘a sad, wise man.’ By his wife Catherine Barry, daughter of John, viscount Buttevant, he left a son, Teige, who died in 1566, and a daughter, Julia, or Shely, who married, first, Gerald Fitzmaurice, fifteenth lord of Kerry; secondly, Cormac MacCarthy Reagh, lord of Kilbritton; and thirdly, Edmund Butler, lord Dunboyne.
[Annals of the Four Masters, sub ann.; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors; Laine's Archives Généalogiques de la Noblesse de France, v. 73; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biography.]