Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/O'Connor, Calvach
O'CONNOR, CALVACH (1584–1655), Irish commander, eldest son of Sir Hugh O'Conor Don and his wife Dorothy, daughter of Tadhg Buidh O'Conor Roe, was born in 1584. He lived in the castle of Knockalaghta, co. Roscommon, and in 1616 married Mary, daughter of Sir Theobald Burke, and granddaughter of the famous sea-roving chieftainess of North-west Connaught, Graine Mhaol [see O'Malley, Grace]. On his father's death in 1632 he went to live in the castle of Ballintober, co. Mayo. He was a candidate for the representation of Roscommon in the parliament of 1613, but was defeated by Sir John King. In 1641 it was rumoured (Deposition of E. Hollywell) that he was to be made king of Connaught, and his castle of Ballintober was the centre of the confederate party. In June 1642 Lord Ranelagh attacked him outside Ballintober and routed his army, but did not capture the castle. He was specially excepted from pardon in the act of parliament as to Ireland in 1652, and died in 1655, leaving two sons, Hugh and Charles. His widow, as a transplanted person, obtained, at Athlone on 8 June 1656, a decree granting her seven hundred acres out of about six thousand.
The son, Hugh O'Connor (1617–1669), succeeded his father as chief in 1655. In 1641 he was appointed colonel in the Irish army, and at the siege of Castlecoote in 1642 was captured by Sir Charles Coote. He was examined in Dublin before Sir Robert Meredith, and described the origin of the rising in Connaught in 1641, and stated that he and Sir Lucas Dillon had been appointed to ask Lord Clanricarde to take the command of the army in Connaught. He was falsely accused of having murdered one Hugh Cumoghan, servant of Major Ormsby, but was not tried, and, after detention for a year, obtained his liberty, and in July 1652 was one of the Irish officers who entered into articles of surrender with the president of Connaught. In 1653 he was acquitted of the charge of murder, and went abroad and served as a captain in the Duke of Gloucester's regiment. After the Restoration he applied to be reinstated in his castle of Ballintober, co. Mayo, and an estate of ten thousand acres. He died in 1669, before his claim had been decided. He married Isabella Burke, and left a son Hugh, to whom, on 4 Aug. 1677, the commissioners of claims adjudged eleven hundred acres out of ten thousand which his father possessed before he took up arms for the king.
[Borlase's Hist. of Irish Rebellion; Calendar of Carew Papers, Ireland, 1603–24; O'Conor Don's O'Conors of Connaught, Dublin, 1891.]