Rory O'Moore

Sir Rory O'Moore (Irish: Ruaidhrí Ó Mórdha) (c. 1600 – 16 February 1655), also known Sir Roger O'Moore or O'More or Sir Roger Moore, was an Irish landowner, and is most notable for being one of the four principal organisers of the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

Early life

O'Moore belonged to an

Given the

The Irish historian Charles Gavan Duffy wrote:

Then a private gentleman, with no resources beyond his intellect and his courage, this Rory, when Ireland was weakened by defeat and confiscation, and guarded with a jealous care constantly increasing in strictness and severity, conceived the vast design of rescuing the country from England, and even accomplished it; for, in three years, England did not retain a city in Ireland but Dublin and Drogheda, and for eight years the land was possessed and the supreme authority exercised by the Confederation created by O'Moore. History contains no stricter instance of the influence of an individual mind.^[5]

Final years

Bishop Michael Comerford wrote that after O'More's defeat at the Battle of Kilrush in April 1642 he retired and died in Kilkenny city in the winter of 1642–43, having co-founded the Irish Catholic Confederation there a few months earlier.^[6] However this ignores his contacts with Inchiquin and Ormonde in 1647–48. Others say that he fled to the island of Inishbofin, County Galway after Galway city fell in 1652. St Colman's Church on the island once bore a tablet with the inscription:

In memory of many valiant Irishmen who were exiled to this Holy Island and in particular Rory O'More a brave chieftain of Leix, who after fighting for Faith and Fatherland, disguised as a fisherman escaped from his island to a place of safety. He died shortly afterwards, a martyr to his Religion and his County, about 1653. He was esteemed and loved by his countrymen, who celebrated his many deeds of valour and kindness in their songs and reverenced his memory, so that it was a common expression among them; "God and Our Lady be our help and Rory O'More".

Comerford quoted earlier historians who wrote that a similar watchword in Kildare was: "Our trust is in God and Our Lady, and Rory O'More".^[7]

Family

O'More married Jane, daughter of

The Balyna estate was inherited from Calvagh O'More by Rory's brother Lewis. Balyna was passed down to Lewis' last surviving O'More descendant, Letitia, who was also descended from Rory O'More because her grandfather married a second cousin. Letitia married a Richard Farrell in 1751: this Farrell family henceforth took the surname More O'Ferrall.^[8][2]

His daughter Anne, married

Following the Irish War of Independence, the 1861 "Victoria & Albert Bridge" across the River Liffey in Dublin, was renamed the Rory O'More Bridge in honour of him.

Family tree

Sources

• Annals of the Four Masters
• Dictionary of Irish Biography (October 2009)
• Ó Raghallaigh, Eoghan (2010). "A poem to Rudhraighe Caoch Ó Mórdha, lord of Laois 1542-7" (PDF). Ossory, Laois and Leinster. 4.
• Dictionary of National Biography
• "The Church in Ireland During the Reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI (1509-1553) @ ELCore.Net". 7 June 2010.
• "Combs &c. Families of County Laois, Ireland". combs-families.org.
• http://clannmuironline.ning.com/forum/topics/rory-o-moore-genealogy
• Heitzler, Michael James (2005). Goose Creek, A Definitive History: Volume One, Planters, Politicians and Patriots. The History Press. p. 275. ISBN 978-1-59629-055-6. Retrieved 8 October 2011.

Depiction in film

The film Rory O'More, made by the Kalem Company in 1911, directed by Sidney Olcott and Robert G. Vignola, set O'More's rebellion in 1798 rather than the 17th century, and moved the action to the Lakes of Killarney. O'More is portrayed in the film by Jack J. Clark.^[9]

Notes