Florence Mac Carthy - in Custody at London

In Custody At London

MacCarthy vainly petitioned for release from prison with a promise to serve against O'Neill. After the English victory at the battle of Kinsale, his brother, Diarmuid Maol ("Bald Dermot"), who commanded Florence's followers in his absence, was killed accidentally in a cattle-raid by some of Donal II O'Donovan's men under the command of Finghin MacCarthy, his first cousin, son of his uncle Owen ; many of his kinsmen were also killed in various encounters with English or rival Irish forces. In 1604 he was transferred to the Marshalsea for his health, but sent back to the Tower, with the privilege of access to his books.

In 1606, Donal na Pípí surrendered his claim to the MacCarthy lordship and received a grant of the territory of Carbery. Then Sir Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, and Lord Barry tried to wrest from MacCarthy the territory inherited from his father, but he successfully resisted by means of the law. However, much of his former lands were re-distributed. He went to the Marshalsea again in 1608, was released in 1614 on bonds of £5000 not to leave London, and in 1617 was recommitted to the Tower on the information of his servant, Teige O'Hurley, alleging his involvement with William Stanley and several exiled Irish Catholic priests and nobles, including Hugh Maguire. MacCarthy was due for release in 1619 but was sent back to the Gatehouse in 1624, to "a little narrow close room without sight of the air", owing to the death of two of his sureties, the Earl of Thomond and Sir Patrick Barnewall. He was freed in 1626 on fresh sureties and won his protracted suit for the barony of Molahiffe in 1630 (although the lands were still in the possession of the English mortgagees in 1637).

MacCarthy lived the remainder of his life in London, where he wrote a history of Ireland, Mac Carthaigh's Book, based on Old Irish texts. He wrote that, "although they are thought by many fitter to be rooted out than suffered to enjoy their lands, they are not so rebellious or dangerous as they are termed by such as covet it". He died in 1640.