# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Connor, Brian

​O'CONNOR, BRIAN or BERNARD (1490?–1560?), more properly known as Brian O'Conor Faly, captain of Offaly, eldest son of Cahir O'Conor Faly, succeeded to the lordship of Offaly on the death of his father in 1511. The importance of the clan, of which he was chief, dates from the decline of the English authority in Ireland at the beginning of the fifteenth century. By the beginning of the sixteenth century the O'Conors had succeeded in extending their dominion over the ​Irish westward as far as the Shannon, while the extent of their power in the direction of the English Pale may be estimated from the fact that the inhabitants of Meath consented to pay them a yearly tribute or black-rent of 300l., and those of Kildare 20l., in order to secure immunity from their attacks. In 1520, when the Earl of Surrey was appointed lord lieutenant, Brian O'Conor was at the height of his power. Being allied to the house of Kildare he was naturally opposed to Henry's project of governing Ireland independently of that noble family, and in June 1521 he joined with O'More and O'Carrol in an attack on the Pale. Surrey at once retaliated by ravaging his territory and capturing his stronghold, Monasteroris. O'Conor for some time refused to listen to peace on any terms, but he eventually submitted, and his castle of Monasteroris was restored to him. On the departure of Surrey things reverted to their old condition. During the detention of Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth earl of Kildare [q. v.], in England in 1528, the vice-deputy, Richard Nugent, seventh baron Delvin [q. v.], made an unwise attempt to withhold from him his customary black-rents out of Meath. O'Conor resented the attempt, and having inveigled the vice-deputy to the borders of Offaly, on pretence of parleying with him, he took him prisoner on 12 May, and flatly refused to surrender him until his demands were conceded. The Earl of Ossory made an unsuccessful effort to procure his release by intriguing with O'Conor's brother Cahir, and Delvin remained a prisoner till early in the following year. In consequence of secret instructions from the Earl of Kildare, who repined at his detention in England, O'Conor in the autumn invaded the Pale, but shortly after the earl's restoration he was pardoned.
When Kildare's son, ‘Silken Thomas’ [see Fitzgerald, Thomas, Lord Offaly, tenth Earl of Kildare], took up arms in 1534 to avenge his father's supposed death, O'Conor was one of his staunchest allies; and it was from O'Conor's castle that he addressed his fatal offer of submission to Lord Leonard Grey. Through the treachery of his brother Cahir, O'Conor was compelled to submit to Skeffington in August 1535, and he gave pledges for the payment of a fine of eight hundred head of cattle. He revenged himself by expelling Cahir from Offaly, but more than a year elapsed without any attempt on his part to redeem his pledges. Accordingly in May 1537 Grey invaded his country, and, having forced him to fly, appointed Cahir lord of Offaly in his stead. For a time O'Conor found shelter with his kinsman O'Carrol; but when O'Carrol was in turn compelled to submit, he came to Grey on a safe-conduct, and promised, if he was restored, not merely to forbear his black-rents, but also ‘to yelde out of his countrie a certen sum yerely to His Grace.’ Grey was unable to grant his request, but he allowed him to redeem his son, who was one of his pledges, for three hundred marks. Though ‘more lyker a begger then he that ever was a captayn or ruler of a contre,’ ‘goyng from on to another of hys olde fryndes to have mete and drynke,’ O'Conor was not subdued. With the assistance of his secret friends he invaded Offaly at the beginning of October ‘with a great number of horsemen, gallowglasses, and kerns,’ and forcibly expelled his brother. Grey at once marched against him, but, in consequence of recent floods, was for some time unable to enter Offaly. In November the rain subsided; but O'Conor had already escaped into O'Doyne's country, and thence into Ely O'Carrol. After destroying an immense quantity of corn and robbing the abbey of Killeigh, Grey returned to Dublin. O'Conor offered to submit, and a safe-conduct was sent him; but he had by that time come to terms with his brother Cahir, and, at his suggestion, retracted his submission. Once more Grey invaded Offaly, but he yielded to O'Conor's solicitation for a parley; and on 2 March 1538 O'Conor made full and complete submission, promising for the future to behave as a loyal subject, to pay a yearly rent of three shillings and fourpence per plowland to the crown, to renounce the pope, and to abstain from levying black-rents in the Pale. Four days later he renewed his submission before the council in Dublin, and preferred a request that he might be created baron of Offaly, that such lands as he possessed ‘per partitionem, more patrie,’ might be confirmed to him and his heirs, and that his brother and other landowners in Offaly might be placed on the same footing. He was pardoned, but his requests were apparently ignored.
For some time he remained quiet, but in 1540 he was implicated in a plot for the restoration by force of Gerald Fitzgerald, the young heir to the earldom of Kildare, and in April and May frequently invaded the Pale. Lord Justice Brereton retaliated by plundering Offaly, but owing to the menacing attitude of O'Donnell and O'Neill, he accepted O'Conor's offer to abide by his indentures, and concluded peace with him. O'Conor's conduct had greatly exasperated Henry, and order was sent for his extirpation, but peace had been concluded before the order arrived; and when St. Leger shortly afterwards assumed the reins of government, O'Conor re​newed his submission so humbly that the deputy suggested the advisability of conceding his requests and making him baron of Offaly. Henry yielded to St. Leger's suggestion, but nothing further apparently came of the proposal; though O'Conor and his brother Cahir had meanwhile, on 16 Aug. 1541, consented to submit their differences to arbitration. So long as St. Leger remained in Ireland O'Conor kept the peace, paying his rent regularly; but during his absence some slight disturbances occurred on the borders of the Pale, which the council sarcastically ascribed to ‘your lordshipes olde frende Occhonor.’ St. Leger attributed the insinuation to the malice of the chancellor, Sir John Alen, and in May 1545 mooted the propriety of rewarding O'Conor's loyalty by creating him a viscount. The proposal was sanctioned by the privy council, but it was not carried into effect, though, at St. Leger's recommendation, a grant of land was made to him in the vicinity of Dublin, together with the use of a house in St. Patrick's Close whenever he visited the city. But whether it was that he was discontented at the indifference of the government, or thought that the accession of Edward VI presented a favourable opportunity to recover his old authority, he, in the summer of 1547, joined with O'More in an attack on the Pale, nominally in behalf of the exiled house of Kildare. St. Leger at once invaded Offaly, which he burnt and plundered as far as the hill of Croghan, but ‘without receiving either battle or submission’ from O'Conor. No sooner, however, had he retired than O'More and O'Conor's son Rory emerged from their hiding-places, burnt the town and monastery of Athy, ravaged the borders of the Pale, and slew many persons, both English and Irish. St. Leger thereupon invaded Offaly a second time, and, remaining there for fifteen days, burnt and destroyed whatever had escaped in former raids. Deserted by their followers, O'Conor and O'More fled across the Shannon into Connaught. They returned about the beginning of 1548 with a considerable body of wild kerns, but so cowed were their urraghts and tribesmen that none dared even afford them food or protection. Nevertheless, O'Conor managed to keep up a determined guerilla warfare, and it was not till winter brought him face to face with starvation that he was induced to submit, his life being promised him in order to induce O'More to follow his example. He was sent to England and incarcerated in the Tower. He managed to escape early in 1552, but was recaptured on the borders of Scotland. He was afterwards released by Queen Mary, at the intercession of his daughter Margaret. He returned to Ireland in 1554 with the Earl of Kildare, but was shortly afterwards rearrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, where apparently he died about 1560.
By his wife Mary, daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, ninth earl of Kildare, O'Conor had apparently nine sons and two daughters, several of whom played considerable parts in the history of the times, viz.: Cormac, who, after an adventurous career in Ireland, escaped to Scotland in 1550, and thence to France in 1551, where he remained till 1560, returning in that year to Scotland. He returned to Ireland in 1564, under the assumed name of Killeduff, and was for some time protected by the Earl of Desmond; but, being proclaimed a traitor, he again fled to Scotland. At the intercession of the Earl of Argyll he was pardoned in 1565. He returned to Ireland, and disappears from history in 1573. Donough, the second son, was delivered to Grey in 1538 as hostage for his father's loyalty; but, being released, he took part in the rebellion of 1547. In 1548 he was pressed for foreign service. He returned to Ireland, but being involved in an insurrection of the O'Conors in 1557, he was proclaimed a traitor and was killed in the following year, not without suspicion of treachery, by Owny MacHugh O'Dempsey. Calvach, the third son, after a long career as a rebel, was killed in action in October 1564.
Cathal or Charles O'Connor or O'Conor Faly, otherwise known as Don Carlos (1540–1596), a younger son, born about 1540, was taken when quite a child to Scotland. He accompanied D'Oysel to France in 1560, and appealed to Throckmorton to intercede for his pardon and restoration. By Throckmorton's advice he attached himself as a spy to the train of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1563 he obtained a grant of Castle Brackland and other lands in Offaly. He was implicated in the rebellion of James Fitzmaurice and the Earl of Desmond, and placed himself outside the pale of mercy by his barbarous murder of Captain Henry Mackworth in 1582. He avoided capture, and subsequently escaped in a pinnace to Scotland, and thence, disguised as a sailor, on a Scottish vessel to Spain. He joined the army of invasion under Parma in the Netherlands, and after the defeat of the Armada returned to Spain, where he was dubbed Don Carlos (a fact which has led to his being mistaken for the unfortunate prince of Spain of that name) and granted a pension of thirty crowns a month. He corresponded at intervals with Hugh O'Neill, earl of Tyrone, and endea​voured to remove the bad effects of Tyrone's conduct in surrendering Philip's letter. He embarked at Lisbon with his mother, wife, and children in November 1596, on board the Spanish armada destined for the invasion of Ireland, but the vessel—the Sonday—in which he sailed was wrecked, and he himself drowned.
[State Papers, Hen. VIII (printed); Ware's Annales Rerum Hibern.; Cal. State Papers, Eliz. (Ireland and Foreign); Cal. Carew MSS.; Annals of the Four Masters; Cal. Fiants, Hen. VIII, Ed. VI, Mary, Eliz.; Irish Genealogies in Harl. MS. 1425.]
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