queen's favourable notice, and to have been lodged in her palace in order that she might confer with him on the state of Ireland. A long ode in Irish to O'Rourke by John O'Maelchonaire [see O'Maelchonaire , Fearfeasa] has been translated by John D'Alton, and is printed in Hardiman's ‘Irish Minstrelsy’ (ii. 287–397).
He married Mary, daughter of Richard Burke, second earl of Clanricarde (Cal. State Papers, Ireland, 1574–81, p. 298). Froude states that she lived in incest with her brother John. She died in childbed, June 1589; O'Rourke himself attributed her death to fright, caused by Bingham's sudden attack at Dromore. She had two sons: one was slain when five years old; the other, Teig, received a grant of the family estates in the next reign.
Brian Oge or Brian-na-Samhthach O'Rourke (d. 1604), natural son of Sir Brian by the wife of John O'Crean, a merchant of Sligo, succeeded O'Rourke as the O'Rourke. He was imprisoned for some time at Oxford, where he accumulated debts which his father was unable to pay. He took an active part in the wars against the government with Hugh Maguire [q. v.] and the O'Donnells. After a campaign with Hugh O'Donnell (1571?–1602) [q. v.] in 1596, O'Rourke came to terms with the government, whereupon O'Donnell ravaged his lands. In 1598 he formed an alliance with Sir Conyers Clifford; but the successes of the rebels rendered them more dangerous than the English, and O'Rourke again joined O'Donnell, because ‘his people felt it safer to have the governor in opposition than to be pursued by O'Donnell's vengeance for remaining under the protection of the governor.’ He contributed to Clifford's defeat in 1599, and served under O'Donnell in 1600–1, taking part in the siege of Kinsale. After Hugh O'Donnell's death, O'Rourke again inclined towards the English; his lands were plundered by Rory O'Donnell, first earl of Tyrconnel [q. v.], in 1603, and he was compelled to live in mountain fastnesses and on islands in the lakes of his country. He died at Galway on 28 Jan. 1603–4, and was buried in the Franciscan monastery of Rosserilly, co. Galway. According to the ‘Four Masters,’ his death was ‘a great loss; for he was the supporting pillar and the battle-prop of the race of Aedh-Finn, the tower of battle for prowess, the star of the valour and chivalry of the Hy-Briuin.’
[Cal. State Papers (Ireland) and Carew MSS. passim; Annals of the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan, 1532–1603; Hatfield MSS. pt. v.; Stafford's Pacata Hibernia, passim; O'Sullevan-Beare's Hist. Cathol. Hiberniæ, ed. Kelly, pp. 150–2 et seq.; Lombard, De Regno Hib. Comment. p. 344; Cox's Hibernia Anglicana, i. 396, 398–9, &c.; Collins's Letters and Papers, p. 115; Bacon's Works, ed. Spedding, vi. 471; O'Conor's Memoirs of Charles O'Conor, p. 112; MacGeoghegan's Hist. d'Irlande, iii. 478–80; Walker's Irish Bards; Hardiman's Irish Minstrelsy, ii. 287–307, 428; Wright's Hist. of Ireland, i. 508; O'Rorke's Ballysadare, pp. 59–61, 345–9, and Hist. of Sligo, passim; Meehan's Rise and Fall of the Franciscan Monasteries in Ireland, pp. 75–7; O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees, ed. 1887, i. 748; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Froude's Hist. of Engl. x. 595, 617; O'Reilly's Irish Writers, p. cxxxviii; Bagwell's Ireland under the Tudors, vol. iii.; Scottish Hist. Soc. Miscellany, i. 39, 55.]
O'ROURKE, EDMUND (1814–1879), actor and dramatist. [See Falconer.]
O'ROURKE, TIERNAN (d. 1172), king of Breifne, called in Irish Tighearnan Ua Ruairc, was head of the clans known as the Ui Briuin, or as the race of Aedh finn, and ruled Breifne, called in English state papers ‘the Breny,’ a district including the modern counties of Leitrim and Cavan; and Conmaicne, which corresponds to the county of Longford. He first appears in the chronicles in 1124, and at that date had a son, Gillabroide, who was slain in battle with the Connaughtmen. O'Rourke had a considerable body of cavalry, and was defeated by a similar force under Conchobhar MacLochlainn at Ardee, co. Louth, in 1128. In 1130 he defeated and slew Diarmait O'Maelsechlainn, king of Meath, at Slieve Guaire, co. Cavan, and in the following year he ravaged Cuailgne and Omeath, then districts of Ulster, now in the co. Louth. He fought the Connaughtmen in 1132, in 1133 made an incursion into Fermanagh, and in 1137 and 1139 invaded Meath. He was expelled from the chiefship of the Ui Briuin by the clan in 1141, after an unsuccessful war with the O'Connors, but regained his position before the end of the year, and in 1144 obtained half Meath from Turlough O'Connor [q. v.] In 1145 he attacked O'Connor, and again in 1146; and in 1148 invaded Ulidia with Donnchadh O'Carroll. Later in the year he was himself wounded when on his way to meet the king of Connaught. He gave hostages to Niall O'Lochlainn in 1149, and in 1150 was confirmed in possession of part of Meath by Muircheartach O'Lochlainn [q. v.] In 1152 Conmaicne was taken from him by MacLochlainn, and O'Connor and Diarmait MacMurchadha carried off his wife Dearbhforgaill, with all her cattle and movable possessions. She was forty-four years of age, and there seem very slight grounds for the current story that
