Page 153 - Demo

Chapter Five 153
pelled a Norman attack led by Miles de Cogan against his western kingdom. But in 1186, weakened in power by family discord and despondent by failure, it is told, Rory resigned his kingship and retired to a monastery. The succession to the title vacated by him became a source of further family dissension and to add to the turmoil, Rory left his retirement in 1188 and made an unsuccessful attempt to resume power.
Taking advantage of the disunion which then prevailed in the region, the Norman bar- on William de Burgo struck and seized part of Connacht for himself. Rory, having led the life of a recluse for twelve years died aged eighty-two at the Abbey of Cong, in county Mayo, in 1199-he was buried in Clonmacnoise. In the aftermath of his death, one chronicler wrote the following disparaging tribute to him:
“The key of the arch, however, which should have been the strongest stone was the weak- est, ever ready to crumble. This was High-King Rory, who not only lost Ireland, but eventu- ally lost Connaught. His own sons warred against him, and warred against one another as well. He was deposed, exiled, recalled; he travelled-a kind of royal beggar-to princes who had been tributary to him, entreating them to put him on the throne again. With a High- King thus disobeyed and disrespected by his own, and his kingdom, which should have been the dominant one, warring within itself, the fates were with the foreigner.”
For often, in O’Connor’s van,
To triumph dashed each Connacht clan, And leet as deer the Normans ran Through Corlieu’s Pass and Ardrahan;
(The West’s Awake-Thomas Davis)
In 1201 Rory’s step-brother, Cathal Craobh –Dhearg, ‘Cathal of the Red-Hand’ or ‘Claw,’ was made king and reigned undisputed. Described as being “one of the greatest Irish princes of his time,” he succeeded in repelling the Norman invaders and maintained peace in his kingdom. After his death in 1221 dissensions again broke out and lasted until 1249. Cathal who was crowned at Clonalis, the ancestral home of the O’Connors in county Roscommon and whose inauguration has been preserved, was also the founder of the world famous Ballintubber Abbey in county Mayo. He is remembered in a ine poem by James Clarence Mangan, A Vision of Connaught in the Thirteenth Century a verse of two of which follows: