Under the year 1249 the Annals mention a defeat which the Irish suffered at Athenry, which they attribute to their refusal to desist from warfare on Lady Day, the English having asked a truce in honour of the Blessed Virgin.  They also record the death of Donough O’Gillapatrick, and say that this was a retaliation due to the English; for he had killed, burned, and destroyed many of them.  He is characterized, evidently with a little honest pride, as the third greatest plunderer of the English.  The names of the other two plunderers are also carefully chronicled; they were Connor O’Melaghlin and Connor MacCoghlan.  The “greatest plunderer” was in the habit of going about to reconnoitre the English towns in the disguise of pauper or poet, as best suited him for the time; and he had a quatrain commemorating his exploits:—­

    “He is a carpenter, he is a turner,
     My nursling is a bookman;
     He is selling wine and hides,
     Where he sees a gathering.”

The quatrain, if of no other value, gives us an idea of the commodities bartered, and the tradesmen who offered their goods at Irish fairs in English towns during the thirteenth century.

In 1257 there was a fierce conflict between the Irish, under Godfrey O’Donnell, and the English, commanded by Maurice FitzGerald.  The conflict took place at Creadrankille, near Sligo.  The leaders engaged in single combat, and were both severely wounded:  eventually the invaders were defeated and expelled from Lower Connaught.  Godfrey’s wound prevented him from following up his success, and soon after the two chieftains died.  The circumstances of Maurice’s death have been already recorded.  The death of O’Donnell is a curious illustration of the feeling of the times.  During his illness, Brian O’Neill sent to demand hostages from the Cinel-Connaill.  The messengers fled the moment they had fulfilled their commission.  For all reply, O’Donnell commanded his people to assemble, to place him on his bier, and to bear him forth at their head.  And thus they met the enemy.  The battle took place on the banks of the river Swilly, in Donegal.  O’Donnell’s army conquered.  The hero’s bier was laid down in the street of a little village at Connal, near Letterkenny, and there he died.

O’Neill again demanded hostages; but while the men deliberated what answer they should give, Donnell Oge returned from Scotland, and though he was but a youth of eighteen, he was elected chieftain.  The same year the long-disused title of Monarch of Ireland was conferred on O’Neill by some of the Irish kings.  After a conference at Caol Uisge, O’Neill and O’Connor turned their forces against the English, and a battle was fought near Downpatrick, where the Irish were defeated.[332] O’Neill was killed, with fifteen of the O’Kanes and many other chieftains, A.D. 1260.  The English were commanded by the then Viceroy, Stephen Longespe, who was murdered soon after by his own people.