Rory O'donnell
RORY O'DONNELL, 1st earl of Tyrconnel (1575-1608), second son of Hugh MacManus O'Donnell, and younger brother of Hugh Roe, accompanied the latter in the above-mentioned expedition to Kinsale; and when his brother sailed for Spain he transferred his authority as chief to Rory, who led the O'Donnell contingent back to the north. In 1602 Rory gave in his allegiance to Lord Mount joy, the lord deputy; and in the following summer he went to London with the earl of Tyrone, where he was received with favour by James I., who created him earl of Tyrconnel. In 1605 he was invested with authority as Ueutenant of the king in Donegal. But the arrangement between Rory and Niall Garve insisted upon by the government was displeasing to both O'Donnells, and Rory, like Hugh Roe before him, entered into negotiations with Spain. His country had been reduced to a desert by famine and war, and his own reckless extravagance had plunged him deeply in debt. These circumstances as much as the fear that his designs were known to the government may have persuaded him to leave Ireland. In September 1607 " the flight of the earls " (see O'Neill) took place, Tyrconnel and Tyrone reaching Rome in April 1608, where Tyrconnel died on the 28th of July. His wife, the beautiful daughter of the earl of Kildare, was left behind in the haste of Tyrconnel's flight, and lived to marry Nicholas Barnewell, Lord Kingsland. By Tyrconnel she had a son Hugh; and among other children a daughter Mary Stuart O'Donnell, who, born after her father's flight from Ireland, was so named by James I. after his mother. This lady, after many romantic adventures disguised in male attire, married a man caUed O'Gallagher and died in poverty on the continent.
Rory O'DonneLL was attainted by the Irish parliament in 1614, but his son Hugh, who hved at the Spanish Court, assumed the title of earl; and the last titular earl of Tyrconnel was this Hugh's son Hugh Albert, who died without heirs in 1642, and who by his wiU appointed Hugh Balldearg O'Donnell (see above) his heir, thus restoring the chieftainship to the elder branch of the family. To a stiU elder branch belonged Daniel O'Donnell (1666-1735), a general of the famous Irish brigade in the French service, whose father, Turlough, was a son of Hugh Dubh O'Donnell, elder brother of Manus, son of an earlier Hugh Dubh mentioned above. Daniel served in the French army in the wars of the period, fighting against Marlborough at Oudenarde and Malplaquet at the head of an O'Donnell regiment. He died in 1735.
The famous Cathach, or Battle-Book of the O'Donnells, was in the possession of General Daniel O'Donnell, from whom it passed to more modern representatives of the family, who presented it to the Royal Irish Academy, where it is preserved. This relic, of which a curious legend is told (see P. \V. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland, vol. i. p. 501), is a Psalter said to have belonged to Saint Columba, a kinsman of the O'Donnells, which was carried by them in battle as a charm or talisman to secure victory. Two other circumstances connecting the O'Donnells with ancient Irish literature may be mentioned. The family of O'Clery, to which three of the celebrated " Four Masters " belonged, were hereditary Ollaves (doctors of history, music, law, etc.) attached to the family of O'Donnell ; while the " Book of the Dun Cow " (Lebor-na-h Uidhre), one of the most ancient Irish MSS., was in the possession of the O'Donnells in the 14th century'; and the estimation in which it was held at that time is proved by the fact that it was given to the O'Conors of Connaught as ransom for an important prisoner, and was forcibly recovered some years later.
See O'Neill, and the authorities there cited. (R. J. M.)
O'DONNELL, HENRY JOSEPH (1769-1834), count of La Bisbal, Spanish soldier, was descended from the O'Donnells who left Ireland after the battle of the Boyne.' Born in Spain, he early entered the Spanish army, and in 1810 became general, receiving a command in Catalonia, where in that year he earned his title and the rank of field-marshal. He afterwards held posts of great responsibility under Ferdinand VII., whom he served on the whole with constancy; the events of 1823 compelled his flight into France, where he was interned at Limoges, and where he died in 1834. His second son Leopold O'Donnell (1809-1867), duke of Tetuan, Spanish general and statesman, was born at Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, on the 12th of January 1809. He fought in the army of Queen Christina, where he attained the rank of general of division; and in 1840 he accompanied the queen into exile. He failed in an attempt to effect a rising in her favour at Pamplona in 1841, but took a more successful part in the movement which led to the overthrow and exfle of 1 A branch of the family settled in Austria, and General Karl O' Donnell, count of Tyrconnel (l 7 1 5-1 77 1 ), held important commands during the Seven Years' War. The name of a descendant figures in the history of the Italian and Hungarian campaigns of 1848 and 1849.
O'DONOVAN, E. - ODONTORNITHES Espartero in 1843. From 1844 to 1848 he served the new government in Cuba; after his return he entered the senate. In 1854 he became war minister under Espartero, and in 1856 he plotted successfully against his chief, becoming head of the cabinet from the July revolution until October. This rank he again reached in July 1858; and in December 1859 he took command of the expedition to Morocco, and received the title of duke after the surrender of Tetuan. Quitting office in 1863, he again resumed it in June 1865, but was compelled to resign in favour of Narvaez in 1866. He died at Bayonne on the 5th of November 1867.
There is a Life of Leopold O'Donnell in La Corona de laurel, by Manuel Ibo Alfaro (Madrid, 1860).
O'DONOVAN, EDMUND (1844-1883), British war- correspondent, was born at Dublin on the 13th of September 1844, the son of John O'Donovan (180Q-1861), a well-known Irish archaeologist and topographer. In 1866 he began to contribute to the Irish Times and other Dublin papers. After the battle of Sedan he joined the Foreign Legion of the French army, and was wounded and taken prisoner by the Germans. In 1S73 the Carlist rising attracted him to Spain, and he wrote many newspaper letters on the campaign. In 1876 he represented the London Daily News during the rising of Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Turks, and in 1879, for the same paper, made his adventurous and famous journey to Merv. On his arrival at Merv, the Turcomans, suspecting him to be a Russian spy, detained him. It was only after several months' captivity that O'Donovan managed to get a message to his principals through to Persia, whence it was telegraphed to England. These adventures he described in The Merv Oasis (1S82). In 1883 O'Donovan accompanied the ill-fated expedition of Hicks Pasha to the Egyptian Sudan, and perished with it.
O'DONOVAN, WILLIAM RUDOLF (1844- ), American sculptor, was born in Preston county, Virginia, on the 2Sih of March 1844. He had no technical art training, but after the Civil War, in which he served in the Confederate army, he opened a studio in New York City. and became a well-known sculptor, especially of memorial pieces. Among these are statues of George Washington (in Caracas), Lincoln and Grant (Prospect Park, Brooklyn), the captors of Major Andre ( Tarrytown, N.Y.), and Archbishop Hughes (Fordham University, Fordham, N.Y.), and a memorial tablet to Bayard Taylor (Cornell University). In 1878 he become an associate of the National Academy of Design.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
