“the corn remained unreaped until the festival of St. Brigid [1st Feb.], when the ploughing was going on.”  A famine also occurred, and was followed by severe sickness.  Well might the friar historian exclaim:  “Woeful was the misfortune which God permitted to fall upon the west province in Ireland at that time; for the young warriors did not spare each other, but preyed and plundered to the utmost of their power.  Women and children, the feeble and the lowly poor, perished by cold and famine in this year."[321]

O’Neill had inaugurated Turlough at Carnfree.[322] He appears to have been the most popular claimant.  The northern chieftains then returned home.  As soon as the English left Connaught, Turlough again revolted.  Hugh Cathal recalled his allies; and the opposite party, finding their cause hopeless, joined him in such numbers that Roderic’s sons fled for refuge to Hugh O’Neill.  The Annals suggest that the English might well respond when called on, “for their spirit was fresh, and their struggle trifling.”  Again we find it recorded that the corn remained unreaped until after the festival of St. Brigid.  The wonder is, not that the harvest was not gathered in, but that there was any harvest to gather.

Soon after these events, Hugh O’Connor was captured by his English allies, and would have been sacrificed to their vengeance on some pretence, had not Earl Marshal rescued him by force of arms.  He escorted him out of the court, and brought him safely to Connaught; but his son and daughter remained in the hands of the English.  Hugh soon found an opportunity of retaliating.  A conference was appointed to take place near Athlone,[323] between him and William de Marisco, son of the Lord Justice.  When in sight of the English knights, the Irish prince rushed on William, and seized him, while his followers captured his attendants, one of whom, the Constable of Athlone, was killed in the fray.  Hugh then proceeded to plunder and burn the town, and to rescue his son and daughter, and some Connaught chieftains.

At the close of the year 1227, Turlough again took arms.  The English had found it their convenience to change sides, and assisted him with all their forces.  Probably they feared the brave Hugh, and were jealous of the very power they had helped him to obtain.  Hugh Roderic attacked the northern districts, with Richard de Burgo.  Turlough Roderic marched to the peninsula of Rindown, with the Viceroy.  Hugh Crovderg had a narrow escape near the Curlieu Mountains, where his wife was captured by the English.  The following year he appears to have been reconciled to the Lord Deputy, for he was killed in his house by an Englishman, in revenge for a liberty he had taken with a woman.[324]