their own on either side of Tír nEógain. To counter the
threat they posed, Eógan Ua Néill (reigned
1432–1455) and his son Henry (1455–1489) increas-
ingly used alliances with the Anglo-Irish earls of
Ormond and Kildare, who sent troops from the Pale
area to help quell the rebellions of Ua Domnaill and
of junior members of the Ua Néill dynasty inside Tír
nEógain itself. Thus reinforced, Eógan and his son
Henry managed intermittently to dominate an area
equivalent to the nine counties of modern Ulster,
including their newly acquired overlordship of Ua
Raigillig’s territory of East Bréifne (County Cavan).
This close association with the earls gradually devel-
oped into dependency. Henry’s son Conn Mór
(1483–1493) and the latter’s son Conn Bacach (“the
Lame,” 1519–1559) respectively married Eleanor the
sister, and Alice the daughter, of Gerald Mór Fitzgerald,
eighth earl of Kildare (d. 1513). Ua Néill of Tír nEógain
lent important political support to the house of Kildare
both before and after the rebellion of Silken Thomas,
the tenth earl, in 1534. It was to win Ua Néill back to
the government’s side that Conn Bacach was created
first earl of Tyrone in 1542.
KATHARINE SIMMS
References and Further Reading
Davies, Oliver and David B. Quinn, ed. “The Irish Pipe Roll of
14 John, 1211—1212.” Ulster Journal of Archaeology, ser.
3, vol. 4. (July 1941): supplement.
Freeman, A. Martin, ed. Annala Connacht: The Annals of
Connacht (A.D. 1224–1544).Dublin: The Dublin Institute for
Advanced Studies, 1944.
Hayes-McCoy, Gerard A. “The Making of an O’Neill.” Ulster
Journal of Archaeology, ser. 3, vol. 33 (1970): 89–92.
Hogan, James. “The Irish Law of Kingship, with Special Ref-
erence to Ailech and Cenél nEógain.” Proceedings of the
Royal Irish Academy40 sec. C (1932): 186–254.
Ua Ceallaigh, Séamus, Gleanings from Ulster History. Cork:
Cork University Press, 1951. Reprint, Draperstown: Balli-
nascreen Historical Society, 1994.
Simms, Katharine. “The Archbishops of Armagh and the O’Neills,
1347–1461.” Irish Historical Studies19 (1974): 38–55.
Simms, Katharine. “‘The King’s Friend’: O’Neill, the Crown
and the Earldom of Ulster.” In England and Ireland in the
Later Middle Ages, edited by James Lydon, pp. 214–236.
Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981.
Simms, Katharine. “Tír nEógain North of the Mountain.” In
Derry & Londonderry: History and Society, edited by Gerard
O’Brien, pp. 149–174. Irish County History Series. Dublin:
Geography Publications, 1999.
Simms, Katharine. “Late Medieval Tír nEógain: The Kingdom
of ‘the Great Ua Néill.’” In Tyrone: History and Society,
edited by Charles Dillon and Henry A. Jefferies, pp.
127–162. Irish County History Series. Dublin: Geography
Publications, 2000.
See alsoArmagh; Fitzgerald; Fitzgerald, Gerald
8th Earl; Gaelic Revival; Mortimer; Ua Domnaill;
Ua Néill, Domnall; Clandeboye; Uí Néill; Uí Néill,
Northern; Viking Incursions
UA NÉILL, DOMNALL (ANTE 1260–1325)
Domnall Ua Néill was the son of Brian Chatha an
Dúna (d. 1260), son of Niall Ruad (d. 1223), son of
Áed “In Macáem Tóinlesc” (d. 1177), and was king
of the Cenél nEógain line of the Northern Uí Néill.
After his father’s death in battle at Downpatrick try-
ing to overthrow the earldom of Ulster, the kingship
was wrested by Domnall’s second cousin, Áed Buide
(d. 1283), progenitor of the Clandeboye O’Neills, who
later took an Anglo-Norman wife related to the de
Burgh earls, on whose support he could rely. At
Áed’s death, Domnall seized the kingship but was
deposed in 1286 by Earl Richard de Burgh, who
instated Áed’s brother Niall Cúlánach as king. Domnall
ousted him in 1290 with support from his brother-
in-law Tairrdelbach Ua Domnaill of Cenél Conaill,
and possibly the latter’s Clann Domnaill galloglass
relatives from Islay (a late source cites Domnall as
the first to introduce galloglass to Cenél nEógain).
In 1291, de Burgh again deposed Domnall in favor
of Niall Cúlánach, and when he killed Niall in 1291
Domnall still found himself deposed again, this time
by Brian son of Áed Buide, aided by the earl’s
Mandeville and Bisset vassals. It was only by killing
Brian and his Anglo-Norman supporters at Maidm
na Craibe in 1295 that Domnall obtained an unchal-
lenged grip on power.
Although he appears on record with other Ulster
kings in 1297 agreeing to the archbishop of Armagh’s
request that he control the excesses of his Irish and
Scottish troops (satellites et Scoticos nostros), the
sources are then silent on Domnall’s activities for
many years, which suggests some accommodation
with de Burgh. Domnall, it has been suggested, built
the first castle at Dungannon, but was probably not
pleased with de Burgh’s grant of Roe Castle and lands
(near Limavady) to his new brother-in-law James the
Steward of Scotland, nor with his construction of
Northburgh Castle in Inishowen in 1305, and certainly
not with his continued (or revived) support for the line
of Áed Buide, whose grandson Énrí was granted hith-
erto Ua Catháin lands at Glenconkeen.
Domnall may have responded favorably to Robert
Bruce’s request for military aid in 1306 and 1307, and
he certainly ignored that of Edward II in March 1314
asking him and many other Irish lords to serve against
the Scots under (ironically) Richard de Burgh. After
Bannockburn, negotiations probably commenced on
the proposal to have Edward Bruce installed as king
of Ireland. When the latter arrived in Ulster in May
1315, Domnall joined forces with him and was con-
sistently by his side thereafter, although he apparently
did not participate in the battle of Faughart in which
Bruce was killed in 1318 (perhaps being preoccupied
consolidating his succession following the violentUA NÉILL (Ó NÉILL)