O'Donoghue of The Glens - 12th Century

12th Century

There was much internecine war during the time of Auliffe Mór, when the O'Brien dynasty of Thomond were battling (ultimately unsuccessfully) for control of all Munster. The O'Briens were pressuring the Eóganacht from the north and the east, forcing them southwest into Kerry. The Cashel O'Donoghues, by then pressured by their Eóganacht cousins, the increasingly powerful MacCarthy dynasty, would surely have been amongst them.

Auliffe Mór was arguably one of the most powerful warlords of the time and it would not be unnatural for a weakened Eóganacht sept to join Auliffe Mór, who was successfully preventing the O'Briens from overrunning South Munster. He completed the cathedral of Achadh Dá Eó on the heights overlooking the Lakes of Killarney just prior to his death in 1158. It was during a campaign in Waterford that same year that Auliffe Mór was killed on the bank of the River Suir by Muircheartach son of Toirdhealbhach Ó Briain, well east of the MacCarthy territory, which indicates the scope of his efforts to maintain the sovereignty of Desmond.

In the following years, a number of sons of Auliffe Mór are recorded in the annals – Aed, slain 1161; Muirchertach, slain 1163; Murchad, died from wounds, 1169; Cathal (ancestor of the Mór) slain fighting the oversea men, 1170; Conchobar (ancestor of the Glens) slain 1178 ('la Donhnall, lá derbrathaire fein' added by a later hand and perhaps inaccurately translated as 'by Domnall, his own 'brother) 1178; Domnall, slain 1178.