O'NEILL, HUGH, third Baron of Dungannon and second Earl of Tyrone (1540?–1616), the second son of Mathew or Fedoragh O'Neill, first baron of Dungannon, the reputed son of Con O'Neill, first earl of Tyrone [q. v.], was born about 1640. After the murder of his elder brother Brian by Turlough Luineach O'Neill [q. v.], on 12 April 1662, he became Baron of Hungannon, and, being taken under the special protection of the state, was for greater security removed to England. Beyond the fact recorded by Gainsforde that 'he trooped in the streets of London with sufficient equipage and orderly respect,' nothing particular is known of his life at court, though from certain expressions in his letters it seems probable that he attached himself to the household of the Earl of Leicester. After the death of Shane O'Neill [q. v.l in June 1567, and the inauguration of Turlough Luineach as O'Neill, government began to regard Hugh as a sort of counterpoise to the latter. He returned to Ireland early in 1568, and was established by Sir Henry Sidney in that part of Tyrone which corresponds with the modern county of Armagh. At first he found it no easy matter, even with the assistance of Sir Nicholas Bagenal, to maintain himself against O'Neill, who, on one occasion, was said to have robbed him of thirty thousand head of cattle, and is believed to have instigated more than one attempt to murder him. In 1574 he assisted Walter Devereux, earl of Essex [q. v.], against Sir Brian Mac Phelim O'Neill, and the earl spoke strongly in favour of advancing him to the earldom of Tyrone. But after the failure of Essex's enterprise, feeling that he was unequally matched against Turlough, he accepted his overtures for a reconciliation, and was reported to be about to marry his daughter.
The government strongly remonstrated against this change of policy; and Hugh was easily dissuaded from pursuing it because Turlough's age and ill-health rendered it probable that his death was at hand. In that event Turlough's position as O'Neill would fall into Hugh's hands in the natural course of events. But Sir William Drury, who thought he detected in Hugh an ambition to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, advised, as a further precaution, that Henry MacShane O'Neill, one of Shane's sons, should be maintained as a check on him. After returning to his allegiance, Hugh wrote piteously on 3 Sept. 1580 to the lord deputy, Arthur, lord Grey of Wilton, that he had been driven by Turlough to take refuge in the woods, and that unless he was speedily relieved he would be compelled to submit to him. Later in the year he was given a troop of horse, and served against the Earl of Desmond in Munster. Subsequently, in January 1582, he did good service by capturing John Cusack, of Alliston-read, co. Meath, who had taken a prominent part in the rebellion of William Nugent [q. v.] The fact that, on a report of Turlough Luineach's supposed death during a drunken debauch in May 1583, he rode post-haste to the stone at Tulloghoge, with the intention of having himself elected O'Neill, does not appear to have come to the ears of government, or, if it did, did not shake their confidence in him ; for about this time the defence of the northern marches was entrusted to him, and the appointment was confirmed from England. But Sir Nicholas White and Sir Nicholas Bagenal agreed that the state was raising up for itself a formidable enemy, and that he would never rest satisfied with less than Shane possessed. Their opinion received some confirmation from a rumour early in 1584 that he had been elected tanist, and that he, Turlough, and O'Donnell had arrived at an understanding.
But whatever the object of the combination may have been, it ceased to exist, or at any rate sank into abeyance, on the arrival of Sir John Perrot. Dungannon's name is attached to an order for a general hosting issued on 22 June, and he accompanied Perrot on his expedition against the Ulster Scots. His request to be admitted Earl of Tyrone was allowed, and he sat by that title in the parliament of 1585. About the same time Turlough, at Perrot's instance, consented to an arrangement by which Tyrone was put in possession of that portion of Tyrone which lies between the Blackwater and the Mullaghcarne mountains, at an annual rent of one thousand marks, to which Perrot added the command of all the urraghs or vassal chiefs lying between the Pale and Slieve Gullion. The arrangement, which was to hold good for seven years, but to be terminable at Turlough's option at the end of three, worked badly from the first. Tyrone's treatment of Sir Hugh Magennis, one of his urraghs, aroused suspicion as to his ulterior intentions, and in January 1587 it was noted that 'generally all men of rank within the province are become his men, receive his wages, and promise him service according to the usual manner of that country.' With Turlough Luineach, his only really formidable rival, he was on particularly bad terms. Accusations of aggressions on the one side, of non-payment of rent on the other, were bandied to and fro. In March Tyrone obtained permission to go to England to petition for a regrant
