Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 41.djvu/353

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O'Caran
347
O'Carolan

duct was specially noticed in Wellington's despatches (vi. 541). He also commanded the brigade during the actions in the Pyrenees in July 1813, and was present at the passage of the Nivelle and Nive. His conduct in command of the first battalion of the 39th regiment at Garris (15 Feb. 1814) was again mentioned in Wellington's despatches (vii. 324). He was present at the victory of Orthes (27 Feb. 1814), and received a cross with two clasps for Maida, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, and Orthes. He was promoted to the rank of major-general 4 June 1814, and was created a K.C.B. 2 Jan. 1815. He was appointed to the staff of the army in Flanders 25 June 1815, and to the staff of the army in France 22 April 1818. He commanded the troops in North Britain from 15 June 1825 to 22 July 1830. He was gazetted colonel of the 97th regiment 7 Sept. 1829, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general 22 July 1830. He was appointed to command the army at Madras 4 Oct. 1830, and was made colonel of the 39th regiment 4 March 1833. In the spring of 1835, on the departure of Lord William Bentinck for England, he held for some months command of the troops in India, and was in command at Madras till October 1836. He was created G.C.B. 19 July 1838. He died unmarried in London on 9 June 1840.

[Napier's Peninsular War; Cannon's Historical Records of the 39th Regiment of Foot; Army Lists.]

O'CARAN, GILLA-an-CHOIMHDEDH (d. 1180), archbishop of Armagh, who is called Gilbert by Roger Hoveden and elsewhere (Cotton, Fasti), a name which has no relation to Gilla-an-Choimhdedh (servant of the Lord), was in 1157 witness of the charter granted to the abbey of Newry by Muircheartach O'Lochlainn [q. v.] The two chief northern bishops were then often called of Cinel Eoghain and Cinel Conaill, and the bishopric of Cinel Conaill or Tyrconnel, which was the title of Gilla-an-Choimhdedh O'Caran, corresponded in general with the present diocese of Raphoe. If they were convertible terms in his time, he had ceased to be bishop before 10 Feb. 1173, when the chronicles record the death of Muireadhach O'Cobhthaigh (‘epscop Doire agus Ratha Both’), bishop of Derry and Raphoe. In 1175 he became archbishop of Armagh, and held office during the visitation of Cardinal Vivianus, sent to Ireland as apostolic legate by Pope Alexander III in 1177. The ‘Annals of Inisfallen’ (Dublin copy) state that he was with O'Lochlainn, bearing the ‘Canoin Phatraic,’ believed to be the present ‘Book of Armagh,’ in a battle near Downpatrick in 1177, in which John de Courcy defeated the Cinel Eoghain and the Ulidians. In the last year of his episcopate Armagh and most of its churches were burnt. He gave Bailebachuill, co. Dublin, to St. Mary's Abbey, near Dublin (Ware). He died in 1180.

[Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy, i. 160; Ware's Commentary of the Prelates of Ireland, Dublin, 1704, pp. 11, 53; Reeves's Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Down, Connor, and Dromore; Stuart's Historical Memoirs of the City of Armagh, Newry, 1819; Clarendon MS. in British Museum, vol. xlii. p. 179. This is the copy of the charter of Newry, originally belonging to Sir James Ware, from which the printed texts of it, nearly all of which are inaccurate, have been made.]

O'CAROLAN or CAROLAN, TORLOGH (1670–1738), Irish bard, the son of John O'Carolan, a farmer, was born in 1670 at the village of Newtown, three and a half miles from Nobber, Meath (O'Reilly). The inhabitants of the village of Carlanstown, co. Meath, point to a slight irregularity of surface in a field near the bridge at the end of the village as the site of the house in which he was born; this field is either adjacent to or included within the parish of Newtown. The family, known in Irish as Ua Cearbhallain, are stated to have been a branch of the sept of Mac Bradaigh of Cavan, to which Philip Mac Brady [q. v.], a friend of Carolan, belonged, and who were allied to the Ui Sioradain or Sheridans. Terence O'Kerrolan was rector of Knogh, co. Meath, in 1550. Shane Grana O'Carrolan, said to be the great-grandfather of the bard, was in 1607 the chief of his sept. During the civil wars his descendants were deprived of their lands (Exchequer Rolls, quoted by Hardiman).

The father settled at Carrick-on-Shannon, Leitrim. O'Carolan's education, begun at Cruisetown (O'Reilly), was carried on, in company with the children of M'Dermott Roe, of Alderford, Roscommon. Attacked by small-pox at the age of fourteen, O'Carolan lost his eyesight. His natural musical gifts were developed by special training; he was provided with a good master for the harp, and, though he never attained to great proficiency in execution, the use of that instrument assisted him in composition. The adoption by blind men of music as a profession was not uncommon in Ireland; and when O'Carolan, in his twenty-second year, began his wandering life as a bard, there were many Irish harpers who used to play at the houses of the gentry throughout Ireland and the highlands of Scotland. Denis O'Conor, father of