in 1649, but in 1651 the last of his castles surrendered, and O'Brien fled abroad to Charles II. He returned with Charles in 1660, and was mentioned in the king's declaration as one of the objects of his especial favour. In return for his own and his children's services, he was, by a patent dated 11 July 1663, created Viscount Clare. He died in 1663, when his age cannot have been much less than eighty-five. He married Catherine, third daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, sixteenth earl of Desmond. By her he had four sons—Donough, who predeceased him; Connor, his successor as second viscount; Murrough, and Teige—and seven daughters, of whom Margaret married Hugh, only son and heir of Philip O'Reilly.
Daniel O'Brien, third Viscount (d. 1690), son of Connor, second viscount, by his wife Honora, daughter of Daniel O'Brien of Duagh, co. Kerry, followed Charles II into exile, and his services are said to have been mainly instrumental in procuring the viscounty for his grandfather. He was lord-lieutenant of Clare under James II, member of the Irish privy council, and sat among the peers in 1689. He raised, in James's service, a regiment of dragoons, called after him the Clare dragoons, and two regiments of infantry. He died in 1690; his son Charles, fifth viscount [q. v.], is separately noticed (cf. O'Callaghan, Irish Brigades, pp. 26–27; D'Alton, Irish Army Lists of James II, p. 314; Memoirs of Ireland, pp. 107, 121, 125).
[Cal. State Papers, Ireland; Carew MSS.; Morrin's Cal. Close and Patent Rolls, Elizabeth and Charles I, passim; Cox's Hibernia Anglicana, ii. 23, &c.; Stafford's Pacata Hibernia; O'Sullivan-Beare's Hist. Catholicæ Hib. pp. 243–5, &c.; Narratives illustrative of the Contests in Ireland, 1641 and 1690 (Camden Soc.), passim; Lodge's Peerage, ed. Archdall, ii. 32–3; Gilbert's Hist. of the Confederation and Contemporary Hist. of Affairs, passim; Carte's Ormonde; Meehan's Confederation of Kilkenny; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors, vol. iii.; O'Donoghue's Historical Memoir of the O'Briens; Addit. MSS. 20712 fol. 27, 20713, 20717; Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. App. v. 243; Collins's Letters and Memorials of State; Metcalfe's Book of Knights.]
O'BRIEN, DOMHNALL (d. 1194), king of Munster, son of Turlogh O'Brien (1009–1086) [q. v.], first appears in the chronicles in 1163, when he slew Maelruanaidh O'Cearbhaill, a chief whose territory was in the present county of Tipperary. He became king of Munster in 1168. He put out the eyes of his kinsman Brian O'Brien of Slieve Bloom in 1169, and made war on Roderic O'Connor [q. v.] In 1174 he met the Normans in battle at Thurles, co. Tipperary, and defeated them, and in 1175 strengthened his power at home by putting out the eyes of Dermot O'Brien and of Mathghamhain O'Brien at Caislen Ui Chonaing, now Castle Connell, co. Limerick, but was nevertheless driven out of Thomond by Roderic O'Connor in the same year. In 1176 he drove the English out of Limerick, and in 1185, when John was in Ireland, again defeated them, when they made an expedition from Ardfinnan on the Suir to plunder Thomond. In 1188 he aided the Connaughtmen under Conchobhar Moenmhoighe O'Connor in the defeat of John de Courcy in the Curlew mountains. In 1193 the English invaded Clare, and he in return ravaged their possessions in Ossory. Though often fighting against the English, he submitted to Henry II at Cashel in 1171, and part of his territory was granted during his life to Philip de Braose. He died in 1194; and the chroniclers, who elsewhere only describe his wars, blindings, and plunderings, commemorate him as ‘a beaming lamp in peace and war, and the brilliant star of the hospitality and valour of the Munstermen.’ His son Donogh Cairbrech [q. v.] is separately noticed.
[Annala Rioghachta Eireann, ed. O'Donovan, vols. ii. and iii. Dublin, 1851; Annals of Ulster, ed. MacCarthy, vol. ii., Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy, vol. i., Giraldus Cambrensis, vol. v. (all in the Rolls Ser.).]
O'BRIEN, DONAT HENCHY (1785–1857), rear-admiral, was born in Ireland in March 1785, and entered the navy in 1796, on board the Overyssel of 64 guns, in which, notwithstanding his extreme youth, he was actively employed on boat service, and in 1799 was put in command of a hoy laden with stone, to be sunk at the entrance of Goree harbour so as to block in three of the enemy's line-of-battle ships. In a sudden squall the hoy sank in the wrong place at the wrong time, and O'Brien and his few men were with difficulty rescued. He passed his examination in February 1803, and a year later was master's mate of the Hussar frigate, when she was wrecked on the Saints (Ile de Sein), 8 Feb. 1804. O'Brien was sent as a prisoner of war to Verdun, where he remained for three years. He then commenced a series of attempts to escape. Two of these ended in failure, after he had sustained the most severe hardships from cold, wet, and hunger. A third attempt proved successful, and in November 1808 he, with two companions, reached Trieste, and finally got on board the Amphion, from which he was sent to Malta. There he joined the Ocean, the flagship of Lord Collingwood. The latter promoted
