Flight of the Earls
By the late 16th-century, "O'Cahan's Country" became the county of Coleraine. The majority of Ó Catháin chiefs fled Ulster in the Flight of the Earls in 1607, and under the terms of Surrender and regrant they forfeited their lands to the English crown. During the subsequent Plantation of Ulster, County Coleraine along with parts of counties Antrim, Donegal, and Tyrone, were merged to form County Londonderry. After the Flight of the Earls in 1607, Donnell Ballagh O'Cahan, Chief of the Ó Catháin (and at one time knighted by the English Crown), was captured and sent to the Tower of London, where he died in 1626. There has been no Chief since.