Owny Macrory O'more

Considered the "last great Lord of Laois", his death marked the end of the O'Mores as one of the most important Irish clans.

Owny MacRory O’More Uaithne mac Ruairí Ó Mórdha
Lord of Laois
Coat of arms
Tenure	1594 - 1600
Born	c. 1575
Died	11-17 August 1600 (aged 24-25) Near Vicarstown, County Laois, Ireland
Father	Rory O'More
Mother	Margaret O’Byrne

Born around 1575, O'More was the son of Rory Oge O'More, Lord of Laois, and Margaret O’Byrne, daughter of Hugh McSeán O'Byrne. He had six full-siblings, which include Fiach, Remainn (fellow rebels) and Doryne, who later married Captain Richard Tyrrell. He also had at least four half-brothers.

In 1578, Rory was killed by troops led by loyalist Barnaby Fitzpatrick, 2nd Baron Upper Ossory. After Rory's death, his friend John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricarde, took charge of Owny O'More.

O'More and Doryne were brought up in Glenmalure, territory of the O'Byrne clan, under the protection of their uncle Fiach McHugh O'Byrne. His upbringing was turbulent and surrounded by the conflict of the Tudor conquest of Ireland - in 1582, two half-brothers were publicly executed at Dublin for their involvement in the Leinster conflict.

O'Byrne took him under his wing, training him in the arts of politics and warfare. He anticipated the young O'More's eventual return to Laois to claim his family's lordship. Owny O'More became Lord of Laois around 1594. He may have succeeded his father's cousin, James.

On 15 August 1594, Queen Elizabeth I reintroduced martial law throughout Leinster to suppress O'Byrne. In response, O'Byrne dispatched his teenaged nephew, supervised by his ally Piers Grace, to terrorise the Irish midlands. By June the next year, O'More had received his uncle's orders to stand down - however they continued their carnage in early 1596.

The English captured O'More after some difficulty, and eventually allowed him to return to Ireland. Upon returning he became "as great a rebel as his father", recovering almost all Laois. The Annals of the Four Masters records O'More's rebellious actions of 1596:

[Owny O'More] was at this time a gentleman skilled in the arts of war; and Leix was totally ravaged by him, both its crops, corn, and dwellings, so that there was nothing in the territory outside the lock of a gate or a bawn which was not in his power. He slew a gentleman of the English, who was seated at Stradbally-Leix, who possessed a large portion of the territory by authority of the Sovereign, namely, Alexander Cosby, the son of Master Frauus.

Upon the 1598 battle of the Yellow Ford and O'More's Leinster Irish irruption into Munster, Lord President of Munster Thomas Norris concentrated his forces to the neighbourhood of Mallow; but not feeling sufficiently strong to encounter O'More, he withdrew to Cork.

In mid-August 1600, O'More and his men advanced towards Maryborough. He was shot and killed by Baron Mountjoy's soldiers in a skirmish near Timahoe or Vicarstown, on the borders of County Laois. According to writer Philip O'Sullivan Beare, O'More "incautiously advanced with one comrade beyond his own troops [and] was struck by a leaden bullet."

Upon his death, almost all of O'More's men lost their fighting spirit - only his brother Remainn continued to fight before surrendering in 1601.

English travel writer Fynes Moryson called O'More "a bloody and bold young man", and the Annals of the Four Masters called him an "illustrious, renowned, and celebrated gentleman". After his death, the O'Mores as a clan were doomed. Laois was seized by the English, "for there was no heir worthy of it like Owny, to defend it against them".

O'More seems to have died without any sons or daughters.

His first cousin, born around the time of his death, was Rory O'Moore, a principal organiser of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Sources

• Annals of the Four Masters
• Dictionary of Irish Biography (October 2009)
• Ó Raghallaigh, Eoghan (2010). "A poem to Rudhraighe Caoch Ó Mórdha, lord of Laois 1542-7" (PDF). Ossory, Laois and Leinster. 4.
• Dictionary of National Biography
• "The Church in Ireland During the Reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI (1509-1553) @ ELCore.Net". 7 June 2010.
• "Combs &c. Families of County Laois, Ireland". combs-families.org.
• http://clannmuironline.ning.com/forum/topics/rory-o-moore-genealogy
• Heitzler, Michael James (2005). Goose Creek, A Definitive History: Volume One, Planters, Politicians and Patriots. The History Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-59629-055-6. Retrieved 8 October 2011.