page_title: Felim O'Neill of Kinard
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Felim O'Neill of Kinard / Early life
context_page_description: Sir Phelim Roe O'Neill of Kinard, was an Irish nobleman who led the Irish Rebellion of 1641 in Ulster, which began on 22 October 1641. He was a member of the Irish Catholic Confederation during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, where he fought under his kinsman and second cousin, Owen Roe O'Neill in the Confederate Ulster Army. In 1653 Phelim O’Neill had sought refuge from the British on an old crannog in the nearby Roughan Lough while staying at Roughan Castle but was captured after his hiding place was betrayed.
context_section_description: O'Neill was a member of the Irish Parliament in the 1630s and studied law at King's Inns in London, as a knowledge of the subject was considered important for landowners of the era. He may have at one point briefly converted to Protestantism, before returning to Catholicism.
  He married three times. In 1629 he married first a daughter of Arthur Magennis, the 3rd Viscount Magennis of Iveagh. Her first name is not known. She died in 1641 shortly before the rebellion. He married secondly Catherine, daughter of Thomas Preston, a younger brother of Lord Gormanston.
  In 1639 O'Neill was awarded a knighthood by the Lord Lieutenant Thomas Wentworth thanks to the influence of his relation the Earl of Antrim. Shortly before the rising, O'Neill evicted some of his Gaelic tenants near Kinard and replaced them with British settler families who were able to pay higher rents.
  However, in common with many Irish Catholics, and especially Gaelic Irishmen, O'Neill felt threatened by the Protestant English government of Ireland. In particular, they were aggrieved at Catholic exclusion from Public Office and the continual confiscations of Catholic owned land.
caption: Charles I by Daniël Mijtens. Following the outbreak of the Rebellion, O'Neill and the other plotters proclaimed their loyalty to the king. O'Neill insisted he had received orders from the King to organise the rising.
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