Donough O'Brien (abt. 1560 - 1624)

Born about 1560 in Cork, Ireland [uncertain]

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 5 Sep 1624 at about age 64 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Susan O'Carroll [send private message] and Ireland Project WikiTree [send private message]

Donough O'Brien is a profile under management of the Ireland Project. Join: Ireland Project Discuss: irish_roots

Numbering discrepancy: Also referred to as 4th Earl by some historians.

Biography

Donough O'Brien is Notable.

Donough O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Thomond ^[1]and the Baron of Ibrickan. He was the eldest son of Conor O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Thomond and his second wife Una daughter of Turlough Mac-i-Brien-Ara.

Donough was brought up in the Elizabethan court but on the death of his father in 1581 he succeeded him as Earl of Thomond and returned to Ireland in 1582.

He supported the English cause and the Protestants, ^[2]. He was involved in parliament in Dublin and active in suppressing Tyrone's rebellion. Thomond was assiduous in his attendance upon the lord-deputy in 1583 and 1584. Albert Pollard, who wrote the biographical entry for Thomond in the Dictionary of National Biography, states that his main object was to obtain an acknowledgment that the county of Clare, where his possessions were situated, was part of Munster, and thus to free it from the jurisdiction of the Connaught government, under which it had been placed previous to his father's death but it was many years before he succeeded. fought wars throughout this period and was wounded in 1600 and in 1603 was Privy Counsellor and in 1605 became president of Munster.

He m.(1) Helen Roche, daughter of Maurice Roche, 6th Viscount of Fermoy and his wife Eleanor Fitzgerald, aft September 1577. She died in 1583. Child of Donough O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Thomond and Helen Roche: Margaret O'Brien.

He married (2) Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, daughter of Gerald FitzGerald, 1st/11th Earl of Kildare and Mabel Browne, aft 6 November 1585. She died on 12 January 1617. ^[3]

Children of Donough O'Brien, 3rd Earl of Thomond and Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald

1. Teige O'Brien
2. Henry O'Brien, 4th Earl of Thomond b. c 1588, d. b 22 Apr 1639
3. Barnabas O'Brien, 5th Earl of Thomond b. c 1590, d. c 12 Nov 1657

And he married (3) Joan FitzMaurice, daughter of Thomas FitzMaurice, 14th Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw and Lady Margaret FitzGerald.

Donough O'Brien died on 5 September 1624 at Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland.

Several inquisition documents of the earls of Thomond are lodged at Petworth. Inquisitions investigated land title to ascertain whether any revenues or debts were owing to the crown on the death of a proprietor and served a broader purpose of recasting customary relationships to reflect common law feudal arrangements.[28] The inquisitions post mortem of Conor O’Brien, third earl of Thomond, dated 8 August 1581 (PHA Ms 1140) and Donough (Donat) O’Brien, fourth earl of Thomond, dated 4 January 1624 (PHA Ms 1141) represent important touchstone documents for research into early modern Co. Clare. Likewise, the inquisition taken into the lands held by Donough O’Brien, fourth earl of Thomond, (PHA Ms B.26.T.16) on 1 April 1619 [29] is of significance to understanding the landholding matrix of Co. Clare as this inquisition details lands claimed by freeholders as their hereditament. [30] Useful information can be gleaned from these for research into seventeenth-century Co. Clare. We read in an excerpt of the 1624 inquisition post mortem of Donough O’Brien the rent-charge levied on land quarters by the earl that was initially set down in the 1585 Composition Agreement... ^[4]

Footnotes

28. On the role of inquisitions and their locations see Patrick Nugent, ‘The interface between the Gaelic clan system of Co. Clare and the emerging centralising English nation-state in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century’, pp 82–83. 29. An abstracted version of this inquisition is printed in John Ainsworth (ed.), The Inchiquin Manuscripts, p. 325 [no. 1011]. 30. An inquisition published by James Frost and dated 19 January 1622 sets out the names of the lands granted, by letters patent, to the earl of Thomond. The inquisition also details those lands contested by the Bishop of Killaloe and Mac Conmara Fionn of Dangan-i-viggin and other freeholders who claimed lands as their hereditament. James Frost, A History and Topography of the County of Clare, p. 295. Text of the above Composition Agreement can be found in the ‘Inquisition Post Mortem of Donough O’Brien, fourth Earl of Thomond’, [1624] (PHA, Ms. 1141) [large rolled manuscript page five, top third of page.

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Documents from the Thomond Papers at Petworth House Archive.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donogh_O%27Brien,_4th_Earl_of_Thomond
• G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume III, page 214.
• http://www.thepeerage.com/p3309.htm#i33085

See also:

• GO MS 68. Ireland. Genealogical Office. Funeral Entries, Vol. 5, Containing Armorial and Genealogical Notes Made By Officers of Arms Concerning Deceases Persons, With, in Come Cases, Illustrations of Their Arms and Funeral Processions. 1622. Page 48 (image 30). Genealogical Office Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Ireland.
• GO MS 79. Ireland. Genealogical Office. Funeral Entries, Vol. 17, Containing Armorial and Genealogical Notes Made By Officers of Arms Concerning Deceased Persons, With, in Some Cases, Illustrations of Their Arms and Funeral Processions. 1450. Page 120. Genealogical Office Manuscripts Collection, National Library of Ireland.

Unverified Geni.com profile, for possible leads:

• https://www.geni.com/people/Donough-O-Brien-4th-Earl-of-Thomond/6000000017856012751?through=6000000008031926287

1. ↑ [S37] Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003). Hereinafter cited as Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition
2. ↑ Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition, volume 2, page 2033.
3. ↑ [S37] Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, 107th edition, volume 2, page 2238.
4. ↑ http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/history/images/Thomond_Papers_from_Petworth_House_Archive.pdf