Brian O'Rourke - Connacht

Connacht

Ó Ruairc was willing to deal with the government, and in an agreement concluded with Malby in 1577 he recognised the sovereignty of the Irish crown under Elizabeth I. But his allegiance was called in question within two years, during the Second Desmond Rebellion in Munster, when he rose out in defiance of the Connacht presidency. It was suspected his actions were induced by an involvement with the Old English family of the Dillons in adjacent Meath, who were engaged in an effort to spread their influence and possessions in the northern midlands, rather than by outright collusion in the rebel Geraldine cause.

Sir Richard Bingham took up the presidency of Connacht in 1584, when Sir John Perrot was appointed lord deputy of Ireland. Ó Ruairc immediately complained of harassment by the new president in the spring and summer of that year, and in September Bingham was ordered by his superior in Dublin Castle to temporise and refrain from making expeditions into Bréifne. Although part of the province of Connacht, the territory was not subject to a crown sheriff, and Ó Ruairc was happy to preserve his freedom of action. He did maintain relations with the Dublin government by his attendance at the opening of parliament in 1585, where he was noted to have dressed all in black in the company of his strikingly beautiful wife.

In preparation for the Composition of Connacht, whereby the lords of that province were to enter an agreement with the government to regularise their standing, Ó Ruairc surrendered his lordship in 1585. He was thus due to receive a regrant of his lands by knight-service in return for a chief horse and an engraved gold token to be presented to the lord deputy each year at midsummer. It seemed a balanced compromise, but Ó Ruairc declined to accept the letters patent and never regarded his terms as binding.

By May 1586 the tension with the president had mounted, and Ó Ruairc brought charges against him before the council at Dublin, which were dismissed as vexatious. Bingham believed that Perrot had been behind this attempt on his authority, but there was little he could do before his recall to England for service in the Low Countries in 1587; upon the president's departure (he was to return within a year), Perrot slashed Ó Ruairc's annual composition dues and, while permitting him to levy certain illegal exactions, appointed the Lord of West Bréifne sheriff of Leitrim for a term of two years.