DEATH OF CATHAL, THE RED-HANDED O’CONOR.
(As recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, translated by Mr O’Donovan.)
A.D. 1224.—In the spring of this year, a heavy and an awful shower of strange rain fell on a part of Connaught, viz. Hy-Maine in Hy-Diarmada, and other places, which produced virulent infections and diseases amongst the cattle of these territories, as soon as they had eaten of the grass upon which the shower had fallen. The milk of these cattle, also, when partaken of by the inhabitants, caused various inward diseases among them. It was but natural that these ominous signs should appear this year in Connaught, for they were the foreboding heralds of a very great loss and calamity, which fell this year upon the Connacians, namely, the death of Cathal the Red-handed, son of Torlogh More O’Conor, and King of Connaught, who had been the chief scourge of the traitors and enemies of Ireland; who had contributed more than any other man to relieve the wants of the clergy, the poor, and the indigent, and into whose heart God had infused more goodness and greater virtues than adorned any other cotemporary Irish prince; for, from the time of his wife’s death to the time of his own death, he had led a chaste and virtuous life. It was in his time, also, that tithes were first lawfully paid in Ireland. This honourable and upright king, this discreet, pious, just-judging warrior, died on the twenty-eighth day of summer, on Monday precisely, in the habit of a Grey Friar, in the monastery of Knockmoy; which monastery, together with its site and lands, he himself had previously granted to God and the monks; and was interred in that monastery with honour and respect.