Maire Rua 1615 - 1686

Maire Rua was born in 1615, or possibly 1616. Her father was Torlach Rua MacMahon, Lord of Clonderlaw and her mother was Mary O'Brien, daughter of the third Earl of Thomond. Her place of birth is unclear. An elegy composed for her gives Bunratty as her birthplace but local tradition claims that she was born at Clonderlaw.

Her first husband was Daniel Neylon of Dysert O'Dea in north Clare. They had three sons, William, Daniel and Michael. It seems that a fourth son was born but died in infancy. When Daniel Neylon died Maire Rua gained control of the estate.

Around 1639 Maire Rua married Conor O'Brien of Leamaneh. From State documents about Leamaneh it seems that he got a £1,000 fortune with her. In 1648 they built a more comfortable mansion on to the original fifteenth century tower house at Leamaneh. Only the four walls with their mullioned windows are left in what must have been Clare's most magnificent seventeenth century house. Conor and Maire had eight children, Donough (or Donat) ,Teige, Turlough, Murrough, Honora, Mary and two daughters who may have died of the plague that had raged in the Limerick district in the year of the siege.

Conor was killed in 1651 at the Pass of Inchicronan while leading his men against the Cromwellians. There are varied reports of Maire Rua's reaction to Conor's death. One report is that he was taken home in a very weak condition by his followers and that Maire Rua nursed him until he died at nightfall. She would have realised that the punishment for Conor's rebellion was forfeiture of his property. It is reported that immediately after Conor's death she went, richly dressed, to Limerick. In a bid to retain her lands and estates she offered to marry immediately any Cromwellian officer who was willing. This is refuted in other versions of the story which state that Maire Rua didn't marry until 1653, two years after Conor's death.

In either case her third husband was Cornet John Cooper, a Cromwellian soldier. They had a son, Harry (or Henry), and possibly a daughter also. Through this marriage of expediency Maire Rua succeeded in keeping her estates intact for her children. John Cooper left the army and became wealthy through land and property speculation, though he later ran into financial difficulty resulting in the mortgaging of Leamaneh.

In fact and in fable Maire Rua was a formidable woman. Legends have grown up around her, many of them exaggerated with the passage of time and many of them simply untrue. In 1664 she was granted a royal pardon on murder charges brought against her two years previously. These charges related to her supposed involvement with Conor O'Brien's raiding parties in the 1640's. Without doubt, she was a tough, forceful and determined woman but there is no evidence to support the story of her throwing her third husband out of the window of Leamaneh, or of her forcing him to ride his horse over the Cliffs of Moher. In fact, it seems that financially and legally the marriage of convenience lasted for many years although they perhaps lived separate lives later on. She spent the final years of her life at Dromoland Castle. Her son, Donough, had moved the family seat from Leamaneh to Dromoland. He was brought up as a protestant and eventually became the "richest commoner in Ireland."

It is claimed by some that Maire Rua is buried at Coad church in Kilnaboy parish. Her two daughters are buried there and it is thought that Maire had constructed the church there following a dispute with the Rector at Kilnaboy.

Legends about Maire Rua may be exaggerated but documented history shows that she was indeed a remarkable and fearless character.

The most interesting group of tales is attached to Lemaneagh Castle, a fine, but bare, old mansion, with curious gardens, courtyards, fishpond, and outbuildings, between Inchiquin and Kilfenora. An inscription over a gateway kept the remembrance green of Conor O'Brien and his wife Mary MacMahon, but the gateway has recently been carried off and rebuilt in a modern garden at Dromoland. The garden near the fishpond has a sort of summerhouse in one wall, with a niche on each side of the door, and tradition says that Maura Rhue (Mary O'Brien) built it for a famous blind stallion, so fierce that, when his grooms let him out, they had to spring up into the niches for safety. Conor O'Brien built the gates to shut in the people of Burren, (for a road through the enclosures leads into that extraordinary mountain wilderness), and would let no one through who did not ask leave of him and of his wife; but one of the Burren gentry gathered a band of the inhabitants, broke the gates, and forced O'Brien to promise free right of way for ever.

'Maura,'-or, as she is known in East Clare, 'Maureen' Rhue (Little Mary), or, by some English-speakers, 'Moll Roo,'-used to hang her maids by their hair from the corbels on the old peel tower, (the nucleus of the building). Others said that she cut off the breasts of her maids. I was told in 1878-81 that she married 25 husbands, all the later ones for a year and a day, after which either of the pair could divorce the other. She used to put her servants into all the houses of her temporary husband, and then suddenly divorce him and exclude him from his property. She was a MacMahon and had red hair (whence her name), and she and Conor O'Brien used to ride at the head of their troops in the wars.

Her descendants at Dromoland and elsewhere told, in 1839 and later, a curious story of her and Conor. General Ireton was attacked by Conor O'Brien, who fell mortally wounded but would not surrender. His servants brought him back, nearly dead, to his wife at Lemaneagh. 'She neither spoke nor wept,' but shouted to them from the top of the tower,- 'What do I want with dead men here?' Hearing that he was still alive she nursed him tenderly till he died. Then she put on a magnificent dress, called her coach, and set off at once to Limerick, which was besieged by Ireton. At the outposts she was stopped by a sentinel, and roared, and shouted, and cursed at him until Ireton and his officers, who were at dinner, heard the noise and came out. On their asking who was the woman, she replied,- 'I was Conor O'Brien's wife yesterday, and his widow to-day.' 'He fought us yesterday. How can you prove he is dead?' 'I'll marry any of your officers that asks me.' Captain Cooper, a brave man, at once took her at her word, and they were married, so that she saved the O'Brien property for her son, Sir Donat.

Lady Chatterton's account in 1839 tallies with that above. She says that Ireton sent five of his best men, disguised as sportsmen, to shoot Conor O'Brien, and one of them succeeded in wounding him. Mary captured and hanged the man, called her sons and advised them to surrender to the Parliament, and set off in her coach and six as described above.

At Lemaneagh it is added that one morning, after her marriage to Cooper, they quarrelled while he was shaving, and he spoke slightingly of Conor O'Brien. The affectionate relict, unable to bear any slur on the one husband she had loved, jumped out of bed and gave Cooper a kick in the stomach from which he died.

It was told that Maureen Rhue was taken by her enemies, after killing the last of her 25 husbands, and was fastened up in a hollow tree, of which the site and, I think, the alleged roots were still shown. Her red-haired ghost was reputed to haunt the long front avenue, near the 'Druids' altar' when I was a child.

Till we meet,
Slan agus beannacht!