Shane O'Neill - Wives

Wives

As was the custom of the day, marriages were normally arranged for political alliances. If the alliance fell apart, then the husband could send the wife back to her father in a political type divorce. Such was the case in more than one of Shane's marriages. His first wife was Catherine, the daughter of James MacDonald (McDonnell in Irish), Earl of the Isles. He divorced her, and treated his second wife, Mary, a daughter of Calvagh O'Donnell, with cruelty in revenge for her brother's hostility. She soon died when Shane captured and imprisoned her father who was his enemy. Calvagh was married to Catherine MacLean Campbell, the dowager Countess of Argyle and daughter of Hector Mor MacLean of Clan MacLean and the Scottish island of Duart and former wife of Archibald Campbell, 4th Earl of Argyll. Shane kept Calvagh, whom he hated for defeating him in battle and eventually kidnapped, imprisoned at Dungannon for years. In that time, he took Calvagh's wife as a mistress. Upon Calvagh's negotiated release, Catherine decided to stay with the much younger Shane. Her father came to Ireland and blessed the marriage between the two in 1563. During his time in London, he asked Queen Elizabeth to find him a "proper English wife". Toward the end of his life, as Shane was trying to negotiate a settlement, he agreed to send Catherine MacLean back to her father and marry the widow of James MacDonald, who was also the base sister of the Earl of Argyll. He did not end the marriage with Countess MacLean, as she was with him at his death in Antrim. Catherine and her children fled into the nearby forest of Glenconkeyne and were protected by the O'Neill clan therein. She eventually made her way to safety at Duart Castle where her brother put the youngest of Shane's children into his care. Catherine MacLean, Countess Campbell, then Lady O'Donnell, then Lady O'Neill eventually married a minister of the Scottish throne and died in Scotland.