fore the MacCarthys had had any footing in these counties. They were both free clans acknowledging the MacCarthys as Kings of Desmond, following them in war, and paying them certain fixed rents in money or kind. Even this much of subordination was denied in the case of O'Mahony.
But the great Irish chiefs had skilled lawyers at their command; they knew that their claims might be made to appear plausible in an English court; they had rendered very great services to the Crown; above all, since a verdict for them would undoubtedly have been to the immediate advantage of the clansmen in the lands concerned, they might hope for a favourable verdict if the case was submitted to a Cork or Kerry jury.[1]
And so we find that a Kerry jury duly found MacCarthy Mór's title to most if not all of the lands he claimed.[2] Coshmaing, Eóghanacht, and Clan Donnell Roe had, however, actually been set out to Valentine Browne and his son Nicholas who were in possession.[3] They were hard to move, and MacCarthy was an improvident drunkard without any legitimate male children. Accordingly a compromise was arrived at. In consideration of a sum of less than £600 the lands
- ↑ It was pretty certain that once MacCarthy Mór was in possession of the lands there would be no plantation of English settlers, and therefore no eviction of the clansmen. Unfortunately, however, MacCarthy's need of money made him come to terms with the Brownes, leaving them in temporary possession of the lands in dispute.
- ↑ It is not clear what happened as regards Clan Dermond. Part of this territory was in possession of the Earl of Cork in 1641, part in that of its own chiefs.
- ↑ On the death of MacCarthy Mór at the final settlement with the claimants to his estates it was decided that all claims of his to lands in Clan Donnell Roe, Bere, Clan Dermond, and other places were to be extinguished. {Car. Cal., 1599, p. 301).
