Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.
O' DONNELL, FAMILY. - A powerful and ancient Irish family, originating in the eleventh century, lords of the county of Tyrconnell (present-day Donegan).
It was frequently at war with England and with the rival O'Neill family. Its power declined in the seventeenth century when, the direct line having died out, a cadet branch, RODRIGO, having settled on the Continent, gave rise to the Spanish and Austrian branches of the family.
Ugo Roe, count of Tyrconnel from 1592, distinguished himself in the struggle for the island’s independence and in the defence of Catholicism. Having risen against the English government, he defeated its governor at Ennisskillen (1594), occupied Connaught
ODORICO DA PORDENONE, blessed - O. is depicted in the monk who witnesses the summoning of the wild animals with a drum. Fourteenth-century codex containing the account of fra' O.’s journey to Cathay - Vatican Library, cod. Urb. lat. 1013, f. 26.and, allied with the O'Neill family and the Spanish army which had landed in Ireland, defeated Queen Elizabeth’s army at Blackwater (1598), earning the congratulations of Clement VIII. In 1601, however, the Spanish and Irish were defeated at Kinsale, and Ugo Roe was compelled to seek refuge in Spain. His brother Rony, who succeeded him in command of the Irish troops, swore allegiance to the English government but, falling under suspicion, fled with O'Neill to Rome, where he died in 1608.
BIBL.: R. I. Mc. Neill, s. V. in Enc. Britann., XX, pp. 6-8; R. Dunlop, Hugh Roe O' D., in Dictionary of national biography, XIX, pp. 811-85; Pastor, XI, pp. 368-71. Piero Sannazzaro
Cite this article
“O' DONNELL, FAMIGLIA.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX (1952), p. 76. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/o-donnell-famiglia.
