22 Facts About Brian O'Rourke

Sir Brian O'Rourke was first king and then lord of West Breifne in Ireland from 1566 until his execution in 1591.

Brian O'Rourke reigned during the later stages of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and his rule was marked by English encroachments on his lands.

Brian O'Rourke assumed leadership of his Irish clan in the mid-1560s having assassinated his elder brothers, but his territory of west Breifne on the border of Ulster soon came under the administration of the newly created Presidency of Connacht.

Brian O'Rourke did maintain relations with the Dublin government by his attendance at the opening of parliament in 1585, where he was noted to have dressed all in black in the company of his strikingly beautiful wife.

In preparation for the Composition of Connacht, whereby the lords of that province were to enter an agreement with the government to regularise their standing, Brian O'Rourke surrendered his lordship in 1585.

Brian O'Rourke was thus due to receive a regrant of his lands by knight-service in return for a chief horse and an engraved gold token to be presented to the lord deputy each year at midsummer.

Brian O'Rourke remained unhappy with English interference in his territories, and he was content to be described as a leading Catholic lord.

Brian O'Rourke sought safe possession of his lands, safe conduct for life, and a guarantee of freedom from harassment by the president's forces of any merchants entering his territory.

Brian O'Rourke was seeking not only asylum but the opportunity to recruit mercenaries to contest the occupation of his territories.

Brian O'Rourke was arrested in Glasgow, where the townsmen sought a stay on his delivery into custody, fearing for their Irish trade.

Brian O'Rourke was transferred to the Tower of London, where he was kept in close custody as the legal argument began.

Meanwhile, articles had been framed at Dublin against Brian O'Rourke with the reluctant aid of Bingham, and there was an indictment laid by a jury in Sligo.

Brian O'Rourke responded, "If they thought good, let it be so".

The trial proceeded and Brian O'Rourke was convicted and sentenced to death.

Brian O'Rourke then suffered execution of sentence by hanging and quartering.

The death of this Brian O'Rourke was one of the mournful stories of the Irish, for there had not been for a long time any one of his tribe who excelled him in bounty, in hospitality, in giving rewards for panegyrical poems, in sumptuousness, in numerous troops, in comeliness, in firmness, in maintaining the field of battle to defend his patrimony against foreign adventurers, for all which he was celebrated, until his death on this occasion.

Brian O'Rourke remains an influential figure in the struggle of Irish lords against English expansionism in the 16th century, and was an early precursor to the generation of Irish nobles who would combat the English in the Nine Years War, which heralded the end of Gaelic Ireland.

Brian O'Rourke remains one of the most common surnames within County Leitrim to this day.

Brian O'Rourke had at least six known children - Eoghan, Brian Og, Tadhg, Art, Eogan and Mary.

Brian O'Rourke is described as being the wife of a Sligo merchant and it is not known whether she and Brian were ever officially married.

Brian O'Rourke's first recorded marriage was to Lady Mary Burke.

Brian O'Rourke later married Elenora, daughter of James FitzGerald, 14th Earl of Desmond and they had a daughter, Mary, who married Sir Hugh O'Conor, O'Conor Don.