Manus O'Donnell - Chief of The O'Donnells

Chief of The O'Donnells

In August 1539 O'Donnell and Conn O'Neill were heavily defeated by the lord deputy at Lake Bellahoe, in County Monaghan, which crippled their power for many years. In the west Manus made unceasing efforts to assert the supremacy of the O'Donnells in north Connacht, where he compelled O'Conor Sligo to acknowledge his over-lordship in 1539. In 1542 he went to England and presented himself, together with Conn O'Neill and other Irish chiefs, became a Protestant, and recognising Henry VIII, who promised to make him Earl of Tyrconnell, though he refused O'Donnell's request to be made Earl of Sligo. The assimilation process was known as "surrender and regrant".

In his later years Manus was troubled by quarrels between his sons Calvagh and Hugh MacManus; in 1555 he was imprisoned by Calvagh, who deposed him from all authority in Tyrconnell, and he died in 1564. Manus O'Donnell, though a fierce warrior, was hospitable and generous to the poor and the Church. He is described by the Four Masters as "a learned man, skilled in many arts, gifted with a profound intellect, and the knowledge of every science." At his castle of Portnatrynod near Strabane he supervised, if he did not actually dictate, the writing of the Life of Saint Columbkille in Irish, which is preserved in the Bodleian Library (Rawlinson B 514) at Oxford. He was also a poet and many of his poems, written in Irish, survive.

Manus was married several times. His first wife, Joan O'Reilly, was the mother of Calvagh, and two daughters, both of whom married O'Neills; the younger, Margaret, was wife of the famous rebel Shane O'Neill. His second wife, Hugh's mother, by whom he was ancestor of the Earls of Tyrconnell (see below), was Judith, sister of Conn Bacach O'Neill, 1st earl of Tyrone, and aunt of Shane O'Neill.