of Man. A long civil war followed his imprisonment,
fought between Niall Garbh’s sons and his brother
Neachtan, lord of Tír Conaill from 1439–1452. This
war only ended in 1497 with the assassination of
Neachtan’s brother, Éigneachán Mór Ua Domnaill.
From 1461 to 1555 Tír Conaill was ruled by a series
of three very successful Ua Domnaill warlords, Áed
Ruad (1461–1505), Áed Dub (1505–1537) and Maghnus
(1537–1555), who were father, son, and grandson.
Shrewd and religious, these three rulers expanded Ua
Domnaill power into the neighboring lordships of
Fermanagh and Lower Connacht, and they called
themselves “Prince of Ulster,” in direct opposition to
the claims of Ua Néill of Tír nEógain. Áed Ruad, aided
by Máel Muire Mac Suibne, seized power in Tír
Conaill in 1461. In 1481, he inflicted a severe defeat
on Mac William Burke in Tirawley. A deeply religious
man, Áed Ruad introduced the Franciscan Observant
order into Tír Conaill, establishing a monastery at
Donegal in 1474. Áed Dub Ua Domnaill was in an
unusually secure position in Tír Conaill, so much so
that he went on a two-year pilgrimage to Rome from
1510 to 1512, during which he stopped off for thirty-
two weeks at the court of Henry VIII, who knighted
him. The highlight of his career was his defeat of Conn
Bacach Ua Néill at the battle of Knockavoe, fought
near Strabane in 1522. Áed Dub’s son, Maghnus Ua
Domnaill, was a canny ruler. Involved in the Geraldine
League, he also made attempts to be made earl of
Sligo. Maghnus was a noted Gaelic scholar, compos-
ing poetry and commissioning a biography of Colm
Cille, the Betha Cholaim Cille, in 1532. All three pio-
neered the hiring of “redshank” mercenaries (Scottish
Highland soldiers). They also utilized firearms, guns
being mentioned in Tír Conaill from 1487. These Ua
Domnaill chieftains also had close links with the Stuart
kings of Scotland. In 1495, Áed Ruad visited James
IV when he “went to the house of the king of Scotland.”
In 1513, Áed Dub also visited James IV, where Ua
Domnaill received a suit of clothes, £40 in plate, £160
in cash, in addition to the promise of a cannon and a
culverin. Artillery arrived in Tír Conaill in 1516 when
a French knight brought over an artillery piece sent by
the earl of Albany. From 1534 to 1537, Maghnus Ua
Domnaill was in contact with king James V.
Following the deposition of Maghnus in 1555, his
two sons, Calbach (1555–1566) and Áed (1566–1592)
were weak rulers, in whose time Tír Conaill descended
into anarchy as Shane O’Neill terrorized the lordship.
However, the famous Red Hugh Ua Domnaill, lord of
Tír Conaill from 1592 to 1602 reestablished Ua Dom-
naill power when he joined in the great Gaelic confed-
eracy, which fought the Nine Years’ War. Red Hugh
participated in the major Irish victory at the Yellow
Ford in 1598 and won a spectacular success in his own
right in the Curlew mountains in 1599. However,
following defeat at the battle of Kinsale (1602), a
loss for which Ua Domnaill was blamed, Red Hugh
left for Spain where he subsequently died. His
brother, Rury, was created earl of Tír Conaill by King
James I, but fled Ireland in the Flight of the Earls in- Rury died in Rome in 1608, thus ending Ua
Domnaill power.
DARREN MCGETTIGAN
References and Further Reading
Bradshaw, Brendan. “Manus ‘The Magnificent’: O’Donnell
as Renaissance Prince.” In Studies in Irish History, edited
by Art Cosgrove and Donal McCartney, pp. 15–36. Naas,
1979.
Mac Carthy, B. ed. and trans. Annals of Ulster, 1379– 1541.
Vol. 3. Dublin, 1895.
McGettigan, Darren. “The Renaissance and the Great Ua
Domnaill Mór, Aodh Dubh Ua Domnaill, Prince of Tír
Conaill, 1505–37.” M.A. diss. University College Dublin, 1995.
———. “The Renaissance and the Late Medieval Lordship of
Tír Conaill, 1461–1555.” In Donegal History and Society,
edited by William Nolan, Liam Ronayne, and Mairead
Dunlevy, pp. 203–228. Dublin, 1995.
O’Donovan, John, ed. and trans. Annala Rioghachta Eireann,
Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland. Dublin, 1856.
Ua Riain, Pádraig, ed. Beatha Aodha Ruaidh: The Life of Red
Hugh O’Donnell Historical and Literary Contexts. Irish
Texts Society, 2002.
Simms, Katharine. “Late Medieval Donegal.” In Donegal His-
tory and Society, edited by William Nolan, Liam Ronayne,
and Mairead Dunlevy, pp. 183–201. Dublin, 1995.
———. “Niall Garbh II O’Donnell, King of Tír Conaill,
1422–39.” Donegal Annual12 (1977): 7–21.
See alsoBurke; Colm Cille; Fitzgerald;
Inauguration Sites; Mac Sweeney; Pilgrimage;
Ua Néill; Uí Néill, Northern; Ulster, Earldom ofUA DUBHAGÁIN, SEÁN MÓR
SeeDinnshenchasUA NÉILL (Ó NÉILL)Origin of the Surname
The Ua Néill family were the first Irish dynasty to
develop a surname, literally “grandson of Niall.” This
derived from Niall Glúndub, or “Black-knee,” king of
the northern Uí Néill territory of Cenél nEógain, then
comprising the area covered by the modern counties
of Derry, Tyrone, and north Armagh. In 916, Niall
Glúndub succeeded Flann Sinna, king of the southern
Uí Néill, as high king of Tara by agreement of both
northern, and southern Uí Néill, ending a long periodUA NÉILL (Ó NÉILL)