Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone

Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone (Irish: Aodh Mór Ó Néill; c. 1550 – 10 July [N.S. 20 July] 1616) was an Irish lord and key figure of the Nine Years' War. Known as the "Great Earl", he led the confederacy of Irish lords against the English Crown in resistance to the Tudor conquest of Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I. He was born into the O'Neill clan, Tír Eoghain's ruling noble family, during a violent succession conflict which saw his father assassinated. At the age of eight he was relocated to the Pale where he was raised by an English family. Although the Crown hoped to mold him into a puppet ruler sympathetic to the English government, by the 1570s he had built a strong network of both British and Irish contacts which he utilised for his pursuit of political power, eventually becoming one of the richest and most powerful lords in Ireland. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone is the 1,338th most popular nobleman (down from 1,306th in 2019). (down from 4,327th in 2019)