this elopement had anything to do with the Norman invasion of Ireland eighteen years later. She was daughter of Murchadh O'Maeleachlainn, and died at Mellifont Abbey, near Drogheda, in 1193. He had another war with Connaught in 1158, but made peace in 1159, and fought Muircheartach O'Lochlainn, but was routed at Ardee by the Ulstermen. He continued in alliance with Connaught for several years afterwards. In 1162 his son Maelseachlainn was slain by one of his own clan. Diarmait MacMurchadha paid him one hundred ounces of gold as a reparation in 1167, while Dearbhforgaill built a church at Clonmacnoise. He obtained eight hundred cows as an eric from the Meathmen for the murder of O'Fionnallain, for whom he was security. He was slain at Tlachta, co. Meath, by Hugo de Lacy in 1172, and his body was decapitated. His head was fixed on a gate of Dublin, and his body hung by the feet from a gibbet on the north side of the city.
Nineteen other chiefs or tanists named Tiernan O'Rourke occur in the Irish chronicles, of whom the most important was chief of the race of Aedh finn and of Breifne, married Aine, daughter of Tadhg MacDonnchaidh, and died in 1467.
[Annala Rioghachta Eireann, vols. ii. iii.; Book of Fenagh, ed. Hennessy; Annals of Loch Cé, ed. Hennessy, Rolls Ser.]
ORR, HUGH (1717–1798), inventor, son of Robert Orr of Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, was born at Lochwinnoch on 13 Jan. 1717. Brought up to the trade of a gunsmith and door-lock filer, at the age of twenty he emigrated to America, and in June 1740 he settled at Bridgewater, in Massachusetts, where he manufactured scythes and edge-tools. He set up the first trip-hammer ever constructed in Massachusetts, and he succeeded in spreading the manufacture of edge-tools through Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. In 1748 he made five hundred muskets for the province of Massachusetts Bay, believed to have been the first weapons of the kind produced in the country. During the revolution he was actively employed in casting iron and brass cannon and cannon-balls, for which, in conjunction with a Frenchman, he constructed a foundry. He also originated the business of exporting flax-seeds from the part of the country in which he resided. He was the inventor of a machine for cleaning flax-seed, and another for the manufacture of cotton. For several years he was a senator for Plymouth county. He died at Bridgewater on 6 Dec. 1798. His son Robert, a colonel, was armourer of the United States arsenal at Springfield.
[Appleton's Cyclop. of American Biogr. iv. 592; Drake's Dict. of American Biogr.; Anderson's Scottish Nation.]
ORR, JAMES (1770–1816), United Irishman and poet, born in the parish of Broad-Island, co. Antrim, in 1770, was only son of a weaver, who held a few acres of land near Ballycarry. James followed his father's occupation, and came into possession of the small holding on his father's death. He joined the United Irishmen, and wrote verse from an early age. Many of his poems appeared in the ‘Northern Star,’ the organ of the United Irishmen in Belfast before 1797, when the paper ceased. His poems were popular, and he was known as ‘The Poet of Ballycarry.’ He took part in the battle of Antrim on 7 June 1798, and is credited with having saved some lives on that occasion. After the engagement he escaped to America, and while there wrote for the press. He returned to Ireland in a very short time, however, and in 1804 issued a small collection of his poems by subscription at Belfast. The success of the publication unsettled him. He took to drink, and died in the prime of life at Ballycarry in Templecorran parish, co. Antrim, on 24 April 1816. He was buried in Templecorran churchyard, and a public monument was erected over his grave.
Orr's song entitled ‘The Irishman’ is a great favourite in every part of Ireland. The poem, which has been wrongly attributed to Curran, is not in Orr's collection of 1804, having been composed subsequently, but it is to be found in the collected edition of his poems published posthumously in 1817. His pithiest writings are in the Antrim dialect. His ‘Poems,’ with sketch of his life by A. McDowell, were reissued at Belfast in 1817. The sketch of his life was apparently printed in a separate form in the same year (Anderson, Early Belfast Printed Books).
[Madden's Literary Remains of the United Irishmen, 1887, pp. 62–72; O'Donoghue's Poets of Ireland; authorities cited above.]
ORR, JOHN (1760?–1835), lieutenant-general of the Madras army, was born about 1760, and, becoming a cadet in the Madras army, arrived in India in 1777. On 18 Aug. in that year he was appointed ensign in the 21st battalion Madras native infantry. In the following year he served with that regiment at the siege of Pondicherry, during which the adjutant of the 2nd battalion of the 2nd Madras European regiment having
