O Maoilseachliann, Kings of Meath
"The Vicissitudes of Familes" Burke
"The mutability of fortune is in no instance more signally
displayed than in the vicissitudes of the O'Melaghlins, native
Kings of Meath. Descended from Conal Crimthine, one of the sons of
the reknowned Irish monarch, Niall the Great, they assumed from
Colman More, the grandson of Conall Crimthine, the soubriquet of
the Clan-Colman, or Southern Hy-Nialls, as contradistinguished from
the Northern Hy-Nialls, the Ó Neills and O'Donnells, descendants of
Owen and Conal Gulban, two other sons of that monarch. As the
"Clan-Colman," or "Southern Hy-Nialls," they were known until the
ninth century, when they assumed the surname of O Maolseachlainn,
or O'Melaghlin, from Maolseachlainn, or Malachy, the then monarch
of Ireland. These Northern and Southern Hy-Nialls exclusively
occupied the throne of Ireland, from the fourth to the eleventh
century; a period of time which no reigning dynasty can boast of,
the Sovereign of Rome alone excepted. They had four royal palaces
in Meath, Tara, "of the Kings," "Tailten, "of the Royal Games,"
Tachtga, and Usneach, of which Ossian sung. But Tara was the most
magnificent, as well the palace of the reigning monarch, as the
place of assembly of the great Fez, or native Irish Parliament.
The ancient kingdom of Meath was no inconsiderable
principality, for it comprised the present counties of Meath and
Westmeath, with parts of Dublin, Kildare, King's County, the
greater part of Longford, and small portibns of the ancient
districts of Brefny and Orgiall on the borders of the present
counties of Cavan and Louth.
The early annals of the O'Melaghlins are rich in incident.
One of the episodes has been dramaised by Howard, of the Irish
Exchequer, in a work of great merit, entitled "The Seige of Tamor,"
or Tara. During the wars of the Danes, Turgesius, a very
celebrated Danish chief, had established his authority almost
throughout the entire kingdom, and towards the close of the ninth
century he became so powerful in Meath, as to have O'Melaghlin, the
king of that territory, at his mercy, and to treat him in the light
of a vassal. Conceiving a dishonourable passion for the daughter
of the King, Turgesius offered insulting proposals to the father.
The outraged parent stifled his indignation, for it was hopeless to
resist, and had recourse to a device to save his daughter's honour,
and at the same time rid his country of the Danish tyrant; a
device, "resembling," as Moore, the Irish bard and historian, aptly
observes, "in some of its particulars a strategem recorded by
Plutarch in his life of Pelopidas." Malachy answered that he would
send his daughter, the Princess of Meath, to the fortress of the
Dane, the next night; but that, as she was young and timid, she
should be accompanied by sixteen of her youthful maiden attendants,
and that perhaps Turgesius might select one of them and spare the
princess, the king's only child. At the time appointed, the Dane
had a grand banquet, composed of sixteen of his principal offiercs,
to whom, during the carouse, he suggested that each should insult
one of the attendants of the Princess.
At length, a messenger having informed Turgesius that the
Royal maiden and her female companions were outside the fortress,
the guests, by his direction, retired, lest their presence might
alarm the ladies. Splendidly attired in the costume of the day,
the Princess and her companions entered the banquet-hall, and
Turgesius had scarcely time to offer the first expression of his
revolting love, when the robves of her companions were cast aside,
and displayed sixteen youthful armed warriors, who seized, gagged
and bound the Dane; and rushing into the adjoining apartment,
dispatched his chiefs. The King of Meath himself, with a chosen
body of troops, was close at hand, and rapidly possessed himself of
the fortress, allowing the Danish troops no quarter. The fame of
this gallant and rmarkable exploit gave courage to the Irish, and
struck the invaders with dismay. On the following morning,
Turgesius himself, loaded with chains, was cast into Lough Annew,
in Meath.
O'Melaghlin then assumed the monarchy, and attacked the Danes
in every direction; but succesive swarms having arrived by sea,
the contest between them and the natives was fierce and protracted,
and extended long afte the death of the gallant Malachy. Another
Malachy, the descendant of O'Melaghlin, a brave and warlike prince,
who reigned at the close of the tenth century, had a long and
deadly struggle with the Danes; and when exhausted in his heroic
efforts to free his country from those cruel and merciless
foreigners, he was deposed by Brian Boru, King of Munster, ancestor
of the O'Briens, who usurped the throne, and broke up the ancient
dynasty. At Brian's death, however, at the battle of clontarf, in
the yeare 1014, the aged monarch, King Malachy, assumed the sceptre,
and followed up that memorable victory by pursuing the Danes to the
very gates of Dublin, and assailing them on all points. After his
death, in the yeare 1022, succesive princes of the rival houses of
O'Brien and O'Conor of Connaught contested for the sovereignty;
but ultimately a gallant prince of the Hy-Nialls, Murtough M'Neill
[i.e. MacLaughlin], crushed their pretensions and restored the old
royal race, which terminated at his decease in 1168, one yeare preceding the coming of the English, and with him fell the native
Irish monarchy; for Roderick O'Conor, King of Connaught, who
assumed the sovereignty after King Murtough, and afterwrds
surrendered it to the English, was but partially acknowledged by
the states of the kingdom, and though popularly called the last
King of Ireland, was not so in reality - the gallant Murtough
MacNeill, the "Irish Hector," as he was called, having occupied
that position.
Another episode in the history of the O'Melaghlins, Kings of Meath,
which has formed many a fruitful theme for bard and senachie, was the
elopement, in the middle of the twelfth century, of the Princess Devorgoil,
wife of O'Rorke, Prince of Brefny, and daughter of O'Melaghlin, King
of Meath, with Dermod MacMurrogh, King of Leinster. To this fase step
of the frail, and, as she has been called, lovely Princess of Brefny,
has been attributed the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland, upon
the invitation of her guilty and banished lover, King Diarmid; but alas!
rigid historic evidence has stripped this story of all its romance.
Hanmer has shown that the fair and lovely Devorgoil - the "false young
one" of Moore's melodies, in the famous song of "The Valley lay smiling
before me" - was forty-four years of age, and exceedingly plain, when
she went off with MacMurrough; and the vent took place fourteen years
before the arrival of the English! The success of the Anglo-Norman arms
in Ireland was more immediately felt by the native princes and chiefs
inhabiting the districts adjoining Dublin.
In 1172, Henry the Second despoiled Murchard O'Melaghlin of his kingdom
of Meath, and granted it to Hugh De Lacy, who was appointed Lord Palatinate
of the territory. De Lacy divided it amoung his various chiefs, who
were commonly called "De Lacy's Barons;" these were: Tyrrell, Baron
of Castleknock; Nangle, Baron of Navan; De Misset, Baron of Lune; Phepoe,
Baron of Skrine; FitzThomas, Baron of Kell; Hussey, Baron of Galtrim;
Fleming, Baron of Slane; Dullard, or Dollard, of Dullenvarty; Nugent,
Baron of Delvin and Earl of Westmeath; Tuite, Baron of Moyashell; Robert
De Lacy's descendants, Barons of Rathwire; De Constantine, Baron of
Kilbixey; Petit, Baron of Mullingar; FitzHenry of Magherneran, Rathkenin,
and Ardnorcher. To some of thse there succeeded the De Genevilles, Lords
of Meath; Mortimer, Earl of March; the Plunkets, of Danish descent,
Earls of Fingall, Barons of Dunsany, and Earls of Louth; the Prestons,
Viscounts Gormanstown and Tara; the Barnewalls, Barons of Trimbleston
and Viscounts Kingsland; the Nettervilles, Barons of Dowth; the Bellews,
Barons of Duleck; the Dareys of Platten, Barons of Navan; the Cusacks,
Barons of Culmullen; and the FitzEustaces, Barons of Portlester. Some
of these again were succeeded by the De Baths of Athearn, the Dowdalls
of Athlumny, the Cruises, the Drakes of Drake Rath, and numerous others.
Thus fell the O'Melaghlins as Kings of Meath, and with them
their lords or tributary chiefs, the MacGeoghegans, O'Haras,
O'Regans, O'Rorys (anglice Rogers), the MacUais (MacEvoys),
O'Caseys, O'Hanrahans, and numerous others, whose lands passed into
the hands of the invaders, and left their descendants to struggle
for centuries after under adverse circumstances. They are now
chiefly tillers of the soil of which thier fathers had been lords
and chiefs.
The succeeding history of the O'Melaghlins would be but a repetition
of the sad story of the old Milesian races, and need only be glanced
at. Their fall, however, was not sudden, but gradual; they struggled
bravely on, though unsuccessfully, against the common enemy, who dexterously
set one chief of their house aginst another, and thus paved the way
for the more easy subjugation of all. In the reign of Henry the Eighth
they had still retained considerable power and preserved a large teritory.
In the yeare 1544 we find Cedach O'Melaghlin inaugurated chief of the
Clan-Colman or South Hy-Niall race. But in 1548 Teige Roe O'Melaghlin
brought Edmond Fahy, alias White, into Delvin against his enemies; but
Fahy turned on O'Melaghlin, and in King Henry's name, to use the language
of the Four Masters, "dispossessed and expelled himself and all his
race from Delvin, and drove him from it, as the new swarm of bees drives
away the old swarm." Henceforward the O'Melaghlins, Ki0ngs of Meath,
chiefs of the grand old South Hy-Niall race, almost disappear in Irish
hsitory, and present only occasionally a flitting gleam on the surface,
as in the war of 1641, and then sink again into the darkness of obscurity.
Five branches of the Family
Ballinderry
Fearnocht
Castletown
Castlereagh
Mullingar