Neil O'Neill

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Portrait of Sir Neil O'Neill by John Michael Wright (1680), now in the Tate Gallery

Sir Neil O'Neill, 2nd Baronet ( Irish Niall Ó Néill , also: O'Neil ; * 1658 in Killileagh , County Antrim , † July 8, 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne ) was an Irish Catholic nobleman ( Chieftain ) and military .

Life

He was the son of Sir Henry O'Neill, 1st Baronet , and the great, great, great-grandson of the chieftain Aodh Mór Ó Néill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone .

O'Neill married Frances Molyneux , daughter of Caryll Molyneux , Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire , in 1677 or 1683 . With her he had daughters Rose, Mary, Elizabeth and Ann. When his father died around 1680, he inherited his title of baronet , of Killelagh in the County of Antrim, created in 1666 in the Baronetage of Ireland .

He served in a dragoon regiment of King Jacob II , rose there to the rank of captain in 1687 and sided with the Jacobites during the Glorious Revolution . He fought in the unsuccessful siege of Londonderry and in 1689 was appointed Lord Lieutenant of County Antrim.

On July 1, 1690, at the beginning of the Battle of the Boyne, he led 800 Jacobite dragoons against English troops under Meinhard von Schomberg and was seriously wounded in the attack. On July 8, 1690, he succumbed to his injuries. His grave is in the cemetery of the French Church in Waterford ; the tombstone is preserved. In 1691 he was posthumously ostracized for high treason , as a result of which his younger brother and heir Daniel was stripped of the baronet title.

O'Neill's 1680 portrait of John Michael Wright is historically significant as it is the only surviving contemporary depiction of the dress of an Irish chieftain. At his feet lies the armor of a Japanese samurai as a symbol of victory over the oppression of the Catholics, next to him stands a wolfhound as a symbol of Ireland.

Literature and web links

  • Charles Mosley: Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage. Volume 2, Burke's Peerage, Wilmington 2003, p. 3010.
  • Sir Niall O'Neill, 2nd Bt. On thepeerage.com

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Explanations of the Wright portrait ( memento of the original dated August 30, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 5, 2012 from the Tate Gallery website @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / beta.tate.org.uk
  2. ↑ Ronald John McNeill: O'Neill . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 20 : Ode - Payment of Members . London 1911, p. 107–111 (English, full text [ Wikisource ] - here p. 111).
  3. ^ N. Molyneux: History, genealogical and biographical, of the Molyneux families. 1904, p. 14 and 105.
  4. ^ Battle of the Boyne . ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: The Oxford Companion to Irish History , 2007, accessed January 5, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.encyclopedia.com
  5. ^ The French Church in Waterford , accessed January 5, 2012.
  6. ^ T. O'Reilly: Rebel Heart , Mercier, Blackrock, Co., Dublin 2009, ISBN 978-1-85635-649-7 , pp. 253 f.
personal data
SURNAME O'Neill, Neil
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Neill, Sir Neil; O'Neil, Sir Neil; O'Neil, Niall; O'Neill, Nial; O'Neill, Sir Neil, 2nd Baronet
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish nobleman and military
DATE OF BIRTH 1658
PLACE OF BIRTH Killileagh , County Antrim, Ireland
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1690