Conn Mór Ó Néill, king of Tír Eógain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_dynasty

Once the MacLaughlins were defeated, the O'Neills spread out and slowly dominated the other client clans across Ulster and the other Irish kingdoms. They used the disruption of the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169 to their benefit and were able to consolidate their hold on the western half of Ulster. The Bruce Invasion of Ireland devastated the Norman Earldom of Ulster, which held sway over eastern Ulster and most of its north coast all the way to Derry. Its collapse in 1333 allowed a branch of the O'Neills that had been on good terms with the Normans, the Clandeboy O'Neills, to step into the power vacuum and take control over large parts of eastern Ulster.

The dominant Gaelic and Anglo-Irish leaders were in tune with their contemporary peers of the Middle Ages in terms of education, international trade, and diplomacy. The O'Neills of Tyrone had strong family relationships with the FitzGerald dynasty, both the Earls of Kildare and Earls of Desmond; the Earl of Pembroke via de Clare's marriage to the Irish house of Diarmuid, King of Leinster; and the MacDonnells, Bissetts, MacLeans, and Campbells.

In 1171, King Henry II of England came to Ireland to remove the authority of the Norman lords in Ireland. He met the leading Irish kings and received the pledge of fealty from them. During the Middle Ages, the O'Neills of Tyrone were active politically and militarily throughout Ireland, occasionally sending nobility to fight within Ireland and in campaigns in Europe. From 1312 to 1318, the O'Neill kings were staunch supporters of King Robert the Bruce and his brother Edward Bruce in their struggle for Scottish independence. They sent troops and supported Edward in his attempt to become King of Ireland in 1315. In 1394 Richard II of England deemed King Niall Mor "Le Grand O'Neill" upon a friendly hosting of the two kings. In the 14th century Edward III of England called Tyrone "the Great O'Neill" and invited him to join a campaign against the Scots, and another O'Neill prince accompanied the English king on a crusade to the Holy Land. In 1493, Henry VIII of England referred to Henry O'Neill, King of Tyrone, as "the Chief of the Irish Kings" and gave him a gift of livery.[4]

The O'Neills' independent stature within Ulster began to change with the ascent of King Henry VIII in England in 1509. Soon after he took the English throne, Henry decided to grasp Ireland via a reputed Papal Bull that claimed to grant the lordship of Ireland to English kings. This was spurred by the 1547 Rising of Silken Thomas Fitzgerald. The O'Neills supported their FitzGerald dynasty cousins in that rebellion and had to maneuver politically to keep the English from toppling their power in Ulster when the rising failed. Henry began a policy to reduce the kings in Ireland to the same rank and structure as the English nobility. In the policy called Surrender and regrant Irish monarchs were forced to surrender their titles and independent lands to Henry, and in return he created them Earls of the Kingdom of Ireland and "granted" them their own lands back. The last King of Tyrone and first original earldom was one such grant by Henry VIII in 1542 to Conn Bacach O'Neill, on the creation of the Kingdom of Ireland. The submission of Conn O'Neill led to a 50-year civil war within Ulster that eventually led to downfall of O'Neill power in 1607 with the departure of the third earl for Rome and exile.

Shane an Diomais (1530–1567), the eldest surviving, legitimate son of Conn Bacach O'Neill, was styled Prince of Tyrone, Prince of Ulster, and Dux Hibernicorum (Prince of Ireland) by his European peers. He did not share the moderate relationship with the English that his father had cultivated. He was almost always at war with the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin. An act of the English Parliament in 1562 gave Shane O'Neill the English title of Lord O'Neill until his claim for his father's estate was settled. The writ for Shane to be named the second Earl of Tyrone was written, but held up on Dublin. Shane rebelled and was killed before he could be invested and in 1569, the retrospective attainder of Shane O'Neill banned the use of the title of The O'Neill Mór.

The title The O'Neill Mór was not a patrilineal hereditary one, but was conferred on the man elected and inaugurated to rule Tír Eoghain. The title does not have to be from a Tyrone sept, as at least two Clannaboy chiefs also served as The O'Neill Mór. However, there are a few families that may, and some do, claim the rights of O'Neill of Tyrone. These claimants are made up of descendants of the last King and sons of the first Earl (Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone): Shane an Diomais (Shane O'Neill), Ferdocha (Mathew) O'Neill, and Phelim Caoch O'Neill. These claimants include O'Neill of Corab, O'Neill of Waterford, McShane-Johnson O’Neills of Killetragh, and O’Neill of Dundalk, as well as the primogeniture of the Marqués de Larraín who still use the titular title of Prince of Tyrone. All descend from one of the last chiefs of the O'Neills of Tyrone.

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, continued to use his title after he fled to the Continent in the Flight of the Earls, although in the law of the Kingdom of Ireland it was forfeit by act of the Irish Parliament a year later. So did his son Shane O'Neill, whose will left his title to his only, if illegitimate, son Hugo Eugenio O'Neill; he died young, and other Spanish O'Neills continued to use the title through the seventeenth century.[5]

The barony of Dungannon was created in 1542 as the title designated for the declared heir of the Earldom. Ferdocha or Mathew O'Neill, natural son of Conn Bacach the 1st Earl, was the first to hold the title of Baron Dungannon. The line that descended from Mathew kept the Baron of Dungannon as one of its junior titles at least through the death of Don Eugenio O'Neill, Conde de Tiron in 1695. There were other titles laid out in the will of Don Juan (John/Shane/Sean) O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone in 1660. They indlude: Viscount of Tyrone, Viscount of Montoy, Baron of Strabane, and Lord of the Clannaboy. There is a later account of the O'Neills acquiring the comital title of Clanawley. Although the title of Baron of Dungannon would traditionally still be preserved with the title of Count/Earl of Tyrone, it is not presently used by anyone in the extended O'Neill family.

Another of the more famous O'Neills of Tyrone was Eoghan Rua Ó Néill, anglicized as Owen Roe O'Neill (c. 1590–1649), a brilliant 17th-century military commander and one of the most famous of the O'Neill family of Ulster. He was the son of Art O'Neill, a younger brother of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone. As a young man, he left Ireland in the Flight of the Earls to escape the English conquest of his native Ulster. He grew up in the Spanish Netherlands and spent 40 years serving in the Irish regiment of the Spanish Army, mainly in the Eighty Years' War against the Dutch Republic in Flanders, notably at the siege of Arras, where he commanded the Spanish garrison. O'Neill was, like many Gaelic Irish officers in the Spanish service, hostile to the English Protestant invasion of Ireland. He returned to Ireland during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 to command the Catholic Army for during the Irish Confederate Wars. He was reportedly poisoned by Cromwell's supporters and died in 1649.