Manus O’Donnell

Manus O’Donnell (died Feb. 9, 1564, Lifford, County Donegal, Ire.) was the first great Irish lord of Tyrconnell, whose career was marked by wars with the O’Neills and by family quarrels with his father and his son.

The son of Hugh Dubh O’Donnell, he was left to rule Tyrconnell during his father’s pilgrimage to Rome about 1511 and retained the chief authority when Hugh Dubh returned. A family quarrel ensued, but, with the help of the O’Neills, Manus established his hold over Tyrconnell. In 1522, however, the O’Neills and O’Donnells were again at war. Conn Bacach O’Neill, 1st earl of Tyrone, determined to subjugate the O’Donnells. Supported by several clans of Munster and Connaught and assisted by English contingents and the MacDonnells of Antrim, O’Neill devastated a large part of Tyrconnell but was surprised at night by Hugh Dubh and Manus O’Donnell and severely defeated. The war continued, however, and in 1531 O’Donnell applied to the English government for protection, giving assurances of allegiance to Henry VIII.

In 1537 Lord Thomas Fitzgerald and his five uncles were executed for rebellion in Munster, and the English government made every effort to lay hands also on Gerald, the youthful heir to the earldom of Kildare, a boy of 12 years of age who was in the secret custody of his aunt Lady Eleanor McCarthy. This lady, in order to secure a powerful protector for the boy, accepted an offer of marriage by Manus O’Donnell, who on the death of Hugh Dubh in July 1537 was inaugurated The O’Donnell. Conn O’Neill was a relative of Gerald Fitzgerald, and this event accordingly led to the formation of the Geraldine League, a federation which combined the O’Neills, the O’Donnells, the O’Briens of Thomond, and other powerful clans; its primary object was to restore Gerald to the earldom of Kildare, but it afterward aimed at the complete overthrow of English rule in Ireland. In August 1539 Manus O’Donnell and Conn O’Neill were heavily defeated by the English lord deputy at Lake Bellahoe, in Monaghan.

In the west Manus continued to assert the supremacy of the O’Donnells in north Connaught, where he compelled O’Conor Sligo to acknowledge his overlordship in 1539. In 1542 he went to England and presented himself, together with Conn O’Neill and other Irish chiefs, before Henry VIII. In his later years Manus was harassed by his son Calvagh, who imprisoned him in 1555 and deposed him from all authority in Tyrconnell.