10 fascinating facts about Con O’Neill

1 More than a million people now live on the lands once ruled by the Clannaboy, whose sprawling lordship ran from what is now Antrim, Ballymena and Larne, through Belfast and Lisburn, to Bangor, Newtownards and Saintfield, and most of the Ards Peninsula.

2 Con O’Neill comes second only to members of the royal family in the extent to which his name is represented in the place names of east Belfast. The Connswater River, Connswater Shopping Centre and Con O’Neill Bridge, and numerous street names are all associated with him. The Clannaboy are also commemorated in the modern name “Clandeboye”.

3 The story of the Clannaboy O’Neills is a saga which in terms of gore and savagery can only be compared to Game of Thrones. The Clannaboy wiped the Anglo-Norman earldom from the map, and became one of the great Gaelic dynasties of medieval Ulster, defending their territory against all comers for nearly 200 years.

4 Roy’s book may end the debate about which is Belfast’s oldest bridge. The Con O’Neill Bridge, off the Beersbridge Road, memorably described by Charles Brett as “a hoop of ancient stonework crumbling shamefully at the foot of a pylon in the derelict wasteland behind Abetta Parade”, was once thought to have been a Victorian folly. However, its appearance on a newly unearthed map of 1683, named “Conns Bridge”, suggests that it dates from Con’s time, or before.

5

The streets of Belfast ran red with blood after hundreds of the Clannaboy were massacred by the Earl of Essex following two days of feasting in Belfast Castle, a gathering intended to cement the bonds of unity between the Clannaboy and the Crown. The Clannaboy got their revenge a few years later when they mercilessly butchered the Belfast garrison, ordering, “their throats cut and their bowels cut out of their bellies”.

6

No trace of Con’s castle at Castle Reagh now remains. An attempt was made to preserve it around the year 1800, when the Marquis of Downshire ordered his agent to have a wall built around the castle’s still substantial remains. According to tradition, however, the instruction was muddled and the wall was built using stones from the castle, thus obliterating all trace of the monument it was intended to preserve.

7

Con McNiall McBrian Faghartagh O’Neill was an Irish prince of impeccable lineage. He could trace his ancestry back through 14 generations to “Hugh the Fair” (Aodh Buidhe), who founded the Clannaboy in the 13th century, and his four Christian names were deliberately chosen to invoke the great leaders from whom he was descended. Con, the leader who once had so much, died with virtually nothing at the age of just 44. This year marks his 400th anniversary.

8

The sacred inauguration mound of the Clannaboy O’Neills, where the 14-yearold Con was inaugurated chief amid elaborate ritual in 1589, now lies covered in brambles and buried deep in forest, with all recollection of its once exalted purpose forgotten.

9

By some miracle, the coronation chair of the Clannaboy O’Neills has survived and, after 70 years built into the wall of the Belfast Butter Market in Tomb Street, where it was used as a seat by the Weigh Master, is now in the Ulster Museum. It is the only surviving medieval throne of its kind.

10

Con’s rebellion against the Crown, which ended when his camp was overwhelmed in a daring night attack, did not cost him his kingdom. This was lost after a “grand debauch” at Castle Reagh, after which he was charged with waging war on the Queen. He was restored, but lost twothirds of his lands to Scottish adventurers James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery. The success of their plantation went on to create the Ulster we know today.