Hugh McShane O'Neill was an early modern Irish nobleman and rebel associated with the McShanes of
Glenconkeyne
Glenconkeyne () is an early-modern Irish district in what is now southern County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Glenconkeyne formed the western portion of the former barony of Loughinsholin, with the ancient districts of Clandonnell, Killetra, an ...
and
Killetra
Killetra () is an early-modern Irish district in what is now southern County Londonderry, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United ...
(modern south County Londonderry). This group was also called the "Wild Clan Shanes of Killetragh" or the "McShane-O'Neills". His parentage is disputed however he is claimed by some as being either a grandson or great-grandson of
Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone
Conn Bacagh O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone ( Irish: ''Conn Bacach mac Cuinn Ó Néill'') (c. 1480–1559), was king of Tyrone. In 1541 O'Neill travelled to England to submit to Henry VIII as part of the surrender and regrant policy that coincide ...
, and
Gearoid Mór Fitzgerald, 8th Earl of Kildare
Gerald FitzGerald, 8th Earl of Kildare KG (born – ), known variously as "Garret the Great" (Gearóid Mór) or "The Great Earl" (An tIarla Mór), was Ireland's premier peer. He served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1477 to 1494, and from 1496 ...
, and of the primary line of the O'Neill of Tyrone clan.
Hugh was an active rebel and commander in the 1580s through 1615. His first deed of historical note was a raid his brothers conducted on
Maguire of Fermanagh
The MacGuire ( ) family is an Irish clan based in County Fermanagh. The name derives from the Gaelic , which is "son of Odhar" meaning "dun", "dark one". According to legend, this relates to the eleventh descendant of Colla da Chrich, great-gra ...
and his lands in early 1573. They were stated to have done great damage to the lands of Maguire. The genealogy that states Hugh was the son of Shane "The Proud" O'Neill is based on his moniker and the fact that he is often in the company of other known sons of Shane O'Neill, collectively known across Ireland in the late 16th century as "The Mac Shanes". According to Scottish sources, he and his brothers
Henry MacShane O'Neill
Henry MacShane O'Neill or Anraí MacSéan Ó Néill ( – 1622) was an Irish ''flaith'', a son of Shane O'Neill. He was the leader of the MacShane in the late 16th century and early 17th century, and sought control of the O'Neill Clan, fight ...
and Art "MacShane" invaded Ireland with 3000 Scots from his cousin Lachlan MacLean in 1587.
The link between the
MacLeans
''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...
and the MacShanes was close in that their mother was the daughter of
Hector Mor, Chief of the MacLeans, and he and two other brothers had been secured with the MacLeans after the murder of their father, Shane in 1567. See
O'Neill dynasty.
The Nine Years' War
When his cousin
Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone
Hugh O'Neill ( Irish: ''Aodh Mór Ó Néill''; literally ''Hugh The Great O'Neill''; – 20 July 1616), was an Irish Gaelic lord, Earl of Tyrone (known as the Great Earl) and was later created ''The Ó Néill Mór'', Chief of the Name. O'Nei ...
, went into rebellion in 1593 against
Queen Elizabeth, Hugh and some of the
McShanes put aside internal family fighting and joined their cousin the Earl. Others did not, and were eventually imprisoned by the Earl. During this war Hugh commanded a force of "200-foot and 50 Horsemen" raised out of the McShane Clan from forests of Killetragh and Glenconkeyn, then the most inhospitable and desolate forests in all of Ireland. Carew is quoted as stating that Hugh was able to field this force in 24 hours against the English. The State Papers of Ireland, in the various assessments of the strength of the rebellious Earl 1586 to 1602, state that this territory and the "
woodkern race of outlaws" who lived there (the clan McShane) is considered primary to O'Neill, as it was his most secure refuge for cattle, goods, and people, and away from the military might of the English. Further, it was the Earl's secure, geographical "connection to the Clanaboy O'Neill". However, the Lord Lieutenant also lamented in 1599 that they (the English) should have "given Glenconkeyn to the sons of Shane, instead of the Earl". It was with Hugh and his McShanes that the Earl spent the final months of his rebellion in the winter of 1602–03. The Earl lived with the McShane-O'Neills after the
Battle of Kinsale
The siege of Kinsale, or Battle of Kinsale ( ga, Léigear/Cath Chionn tSáile), was the ultimate battle in England's conquest of Gaelic Ireland, commencing in October 1601, near the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and at the climax of t ...
and the fall of Dungannon to Lord
Mountjoy on the slopes of Sleive Gallion. Finally in March 1603, the Earl made peace.
Internal O'Neill struggles
The struggles within the O'Neill family are well known. The Earl Hugh suppressed his own cousins more than he did the English in the first few years of his reign. In 1583 and 1587, the Earl put down any other claimants to the Chiefship, including Tirlough O'Neill, until he had himself recognised as Sir Tirlough Linneach's heir as The O'Neill Mor. In 1590, the Earl hung Hugh "Gaveloch", son of
Shane O'Neill for conspiring against him. In 1593 the Earl had his cousin Phelim McTurlough, Lord of Loughinshollin and chief of a sept within the Clanaboy O'Neill, murdered on Toome on the Bann River, and instilled himself as the Lord of Loughinshollin.
Hugh and his McShanes were able to weather the rise of the Earl and had split loyalties to the Earl when fighting the English. However, with the loss of the Nine Years' War in 1603, Hugh McShane was able to edge out the Earl and became the new Lord of Killetragh and controlling most of the Lordship of Loughinshollin. He maintained independence from 1600 to 1606, and then replaced the Earl as the sole lord in the years following the Earl fleeing from Ireland in 1607. However, with the
Flight of the Earls
The Flight of the Earls ( ir, Imeacht na nIarlaí)In Irish, the neutral term ''Imeacht'' is usually used i.e. the ''Departure of the Earls''. The term 'Flight' is translated 'Teitheadh na nIarlaí' and is sometimes seen. took place in Se ...
and the power vacuum that created, Hugh McShane and the other smaller lords had to deal with the sudden presence of the English military in Ulster. For a while, Hugh benefited from this independence. Sir
Arthur Chichester
Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester (May 1563 – 19 February 1625; known between 1596 and 1613 as Sir Arthur Chichester), of Carrickfergus in Ireland, was an English administrator and soldier who served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 16 ...
put out a warrant for wanted rebels and in 1608 Hugh McShane, his brother Phelim, and Hugh's wild McShanes captured Shane Carragh O'Cahan in Glenconkeyn forest. They turned him over to Chichester for a pardon and remit of some leases for two years. In 1610 Hugh McShane was on the jury that divided the lands out of the forfeited estate of his cousin the Earl of Tyrone. In doing so Hugh received of the Earl's lands around Dungannon, and in 1611 another in Tyrone. Conn MacShane held an adjoining portion, and he and Henry both received large estates in Armagh and Fermanagh. Hugh's new neighbour and friend was the departed Earl's nephew Brian Crossagh, son of Sir
Cormac MacBaron O'Neill, something that would cement a friendship impacting them both in later life.
Later life
After his pardon in 1608, Hugh slipped back into the forests of
Loughinshollin barony and held on to what power he could during the early years of the
Plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
of the newly established
County Londonderry. He was granted outside the ancestral home in Dungannon in 1611. As planters moved into the territories to the north, the combination of the dense forest and Hugh's reputation kept most new arrivals out. By 1615 he had lost his lands in Dungannon over a struggle with the Lord Lieutenant. Sir Thomas Phillips tried in vain from the small fort in Desertmartin to subdue the old Chief, but his strength with the McShanes was unmatchable with the local Irish, and he was never captured. He remained on his former lands, but eventually became known as a highwayman, controlling the forests and roads of southern Londonderry and the GlenShane pass.
In 1615 he, along with Brian Crossagh (son of Cormac MacBaron O'Neill), Rory O'Cahan, and Alexander McDonald (son of
the Earl of Antrim), he was named by Lord Chichester as a primary conspirator in a planned rising known as "the Natives Rebellion". They were accused of fomenting a rebellion against the English and Scots planters, and planning the escape of the Earl of Tyrone's young son from a castle in Tyrone. Unlike the other conspirators, Hugh McShane was never captured and brought before the English. He escaped the gallows and died sometime after 1621 still in the forest. The last historical notation was an inquisition taken within Derry in 1621 that listed him as a "gentleman", referring to his status as a landowner. Hugh McShane had a son named Brian McHugh McShane O'Neill and possibly another named Cullough Boy and one named Owen McHugh McShane O'Neill. Brian was named the chief of McShane-O'Neills in the 1620s.
Hugh's son Brian was imprisoned for raiding in 1627. In the
1641 Rebellion
The Irish Rebellion of 1641 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1641) was an uprising by Irish Catholics in the Kingdom of Ireland, who wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to partially or fully reverse the plantation ...
the tone in Ireland took a major turn with the entrance of
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
and his
New Model Army in 1648. In response to this new Protestant army in Ireland, Brian McShane O'Neill took a Royal commission and fought for the King. However, when King Charles I was defeated, Brian fled Ireland and into the exiled service of King Charles II, posted to the Spanish court. From 1656 until 1660, Captain Brian O'Neill served in an Irish regiment in Spain. By the census of 1659 the use of the O'Neill surname was dwindling and there remained only five McShane households in all of County Londonderry. However, Captain Brian returned to Ireland with a pardon upon the
restoration of the Stuart monarchy. Hugh's grandchildren continued to live on the lands Brian eventually settled in the
Drapers' portion of Loughinshollin barony, part of his father's old estate.
The family was permanently established on its own lands by Hugh's great-grandson Owen McShane (Eoghan McShane). In the Census of 1740 they had a farm in the Townland of Moneyneany in the Parish of Ballinascreen, and another in the Townland of Carnacose/Carncose in the Parish of Desertmartin, both just outside
Draperstown
Draperstown ()Toner, Gregory. ''Place-Names of Northern Ireland'', p. 85. Queen's University of Belfast, 1996; is a village in the Sperrin Mountains in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is situated in the civil parish of Ballinascreen an ...
.
[Protestant Landowners list of 1740, PRONI] There a branch of the family has remained, farming the same lands today. During the times of anti-Catholic legislation of the 18th century and again in the early 19th century, the family took the practice of translating the name from the Gaelic Mac Shane or "son of John" to the English "Johnson" or "Johnston". This was the case of one of their more famous relatives,
Sir William Johnson, whose father had been a MacShane.
Sources
*''The Londonderry Plantation'' 1609–1621, by
T. W. Moody, pp. 51, 166;
*''Plantation in Ulster'', by George Hill, pp. 65, 250;
*''Londerry Lands & Families'', by George Hill, p. 425;
*''Ireland Under the Tudors'', by Richard Bagwell, p. 284;
*''Tyrone's Rebellion'', by Hyram Morgan, p. 18;
*''The History of Ulster'', by Ramsey Colles, p. 173;
*''The Parishes of Kilrea'', by J.W. Kernohan, p. 30;
*''London and the LondonDerry Companies'', by Sir T. Phillips, 18 March 1614, pp. 47 & 58;
*''Life and Time of Aodh O'Neill'', by John Mitchel, p. 223;
*''Calendar of the State Papers of Ireland, 1608–1610'', p. 15;
*''Calendar of the State Papers of Scotland 1657–1667, vol XI'', p. 558:
*''Moneyneena, A Hundred Years'', Ballinascreen Historical Society, LondonDerry, June 2002, p. 7 and others
*"The Pedigree of O'Neill, Coat of Arms", Government Office-Republic of Ireland, M.S. No. 168, p. 138
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Hugh Mcshane
Irish lords
1620s deaths
People from County Armagh
16th-century Irish people
17th-century Irish people
O'Neill dynasty
1570s births