The 1949 Owen Roe O’Neill Tercentenary Commemoration

Times Past with Jonathan Smyth.

It is fair to say that Owen Roe O’Neill has a long-standing and historic connection to Co Cavan. In 1649, O’Neill was preparing to fight Cromwell’s army when he became sick and died on November 6. His death occurred while he was staying at Cloughoughter Castle, and some unsubstantiated accounts suggest he may even have been poisoned.

The body of this hallowed soldier who had returned to Ireland from continental Europe after 40 years’ service in the Spanish Army, who came to deliver the Irish from the English, was alas brought to St Mary’s Fransiscan Abbey, Cavan Town, where his earthly remains rest to this day. Various reports state that Owen Roe may have been buried inside the chancel of the former abbey and, in 1949, Cavan did tremendous work to remember him through a committee formed to organise events for the 300th anniversary commemorations of O’Neill’s demise. The committee successfully raised an extraordinarily large amount of money to fund a well-organised programme of events.

In recent months, Colman Smith donated a valuable archive of material on the Owen Roe O’Neill celebrations of 1949 to the County Archives at the Johnston Central Library. Colman inherited the collection from his father M.J. Smith who at the time was County Secretary for Cavan and secretary of the Owen Roe Tercentenary Commemorative Committee. Amazingly, the committee collected £4,000, which in those days was a lot of money and in terms of money today it would easily buy a farm. The archive contains correspondence and financial records, which offer an insight into the organisation involved in the production and co-ordination of the commemoration.

Invitations were posted far and wide and meetings were held around the island to encourage as many people and organisations as possible to attend the ceremonies. The Evening Herald on August 17, 1949, published a notice at the request of Sean Sheridan, chairman, of the Cavanmen’s Association of Dublin, who summoned all Cavan men and women resident in Dublin to a meeting at Hyne’s Restaurant, Dame Street, at which the Rev Patrick Gaffney vice-president of St Patrick’s College, Cavan, and chairman of the Owen Roe celebrations committee attended. He reminded Dublin’s ‘Cavan diaspora’ that ‘a punctual and large attendance’ was required.

The Memorial Committee appealed with confidence for the public to give their ‘active and enthusiastic support’ to ensure that the events would be worthy of the celebrated soldier-statesman for whom the country ‘held in such honour and affection’. The committee was certain that Cavan would be ‘worthy of the man and the occasion’ and the public could help by attending the various ceremonies and by making a subscription to the Memorial Fund.

A brochure for the two-day event stated: ‘Three hundred years ago, upon St Leonard’s Day, 1649, one of the greatest Irish soldiers of all time died in lonely Cloughoughter Castle. With him died the hopes of the Ireland of his day. His military training was obtained in the crack Royal Foot Guards of His Most Catholic Majesty Philip IV of Spain where he was known as Don Eugenio O’Neile, while Ireland knew him best as General Eoghan Ruaidh O’Neill, Commanding General of the Army of the North in the service of the Catholic Confederacy, and she regards him as perhaps the greatest of her soldier sons’.

The author of the leaflet lamented that the great patriot now lay beneath the sod of the chancel in the grounds of the ruined Franciscan Abbey ‘without his name upon a stone’ and only a distance of some forty miles from the scene of his greatest victory, the battle of Benburb. Cavan we are told, was his main army base, where the names of Cavan soldiers loomed large ‘in his regimental rolls’ and the County of Cavan as the ‘custodian of his dust’ was honoured to ‘raise the nation’s flag and render a soldier’s salute’ in remembrance of him.

The commemorative ceremonies included an Historical and Military Exhibition at Cavan Courthouse, and an Industrial and Agricultural Exhibition at the Town Hall which both ran from Sunday, October 2 to Sunday, October 9. On Saturday, October 8, a Grand Military Tattoo was held in Breffni Park and on Sunday, October 9, Solemn High Mass with Military Honours took place in the Cathedral of St Patrick and St Felim.

Uachtarán na hÉireann

President O’Ceallaigh drove into Cavan Town to unveil a plaque on the tower of the former Franciscan Abbey of St Mary’s. The President got out from his car to witness the cheering public and the sounding of a 14-gun artillery salute whose reverberation could be heard throughout the town. The President was received in a traditional ceremonial manner as he walked through a ‘triumphal arch decorated with flowers’ on approaching the Abbey. The large gathering had, according to this paper, overflowed from the Abbey grounds and out onto Farnham Street.

After the ceremony, President O’Ceallaigh was ‘escorted’ to the Courthouse for a repeat performance of the Grand Military Tattoo (held the day before in Breffni Park). He received a salute from participants in the ‘spectacular’ march past, which was made-up of the Irish Army, FCA units, old IRA, civilian organisations (both north and south of the Border), and over 100 bands whose music happily emanated amidst a display of beautiful banners carried aloft down Farnham Street. The Irish Press on October 10, 1949, reported that: ‘There was a massed band parade led by the army No. 1 Band under Captain J.G. O’Doherty, and featuring also the regimental bands of the 2nd and 5th and 7th Infantry Battalions.’

Owen Roe’s death

Following on from Owen Roe’s death, a meeting was held in Belturbet in March 1650 to elect a successor to lead his army, and the man they chose was a famous Monaghan stalwart, Heber McMahon, Bishop of Clogher. Owen Roe O’Neill was a great grandson of Cormac Mac Barron O’Neill, first earl of Tyrone, and nephew of the great Hugh O’Neill whose brother Art O’Neill was his father. It is said that Owen Roe’s mother may have been Art’s third wife, who was an O’Reilly from Breifne. Families of the surname McBarron can lay claim to being one of the closest branches of both the great Hugh O’Neill of Tyrone and Owen Roe O’Neill.