Owny MacRory O'More

Early life Born around 1575, O'More was the son of Rory Oge O'More, Lord of Laois, and Margaret O’Byrne, daughter of Hugh McSeán O'Byrne. He had six full-siblings, which include Fiach, Remainn (fellow rebels) and Doryne, He also had at least four half-brothers.

In 1556, Queen Mary I had approved the Settlement of Laois and Offaly Act, which shired Laois and Uí Failghe (now Offaly), renaming them Queen's County and King's County respectively. This dispossessed the rest of Clan O'More and started the Plantations of Ireland.

On 7 December 1597, O'More and his allies Tyrrell and Nugent killed Walter Hovenden in battle, defeating his troops. Ironically, Hovenden was the foster-brother of the Irish confederacy leader Hugh O'Neill.

Upon 1598's Battle of the Yellow Ford and O'More's Leinster Irish irruption into Munster, Lord President of Munster Thomas Norris concentrated his forces to the neighbourhood of Mallow; but not feeling sufficiently strong to encounter O'More, he withdrew to Cork.

Pass of the Plumes One of O'More's most significant battles, the Pass of the Plumes, took place on 17 May 1599 against Lord Deputy Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. It was named this because O'More's men captured many feathered helmets of the English soldiers.

Essex set out from Dublin on 9 May to muster his army in the Curragh. He took the castle of Athy, and was harried by O'More's men as he passed beyond the Pale. He relieved the fort of Maryborough, headed towards the pass of Cashel in Queens County. The pass was wooded and boggy, with a plashed trench at either end. At the head of Essex's advance were 40 shot and 20 swordsmen. In the face of rebel resistance, the calivermen moved to point blank range and the swordsmen jumped into the trenches on the flanks; the vanguard moved through the calivermen in a frontal assault and pressed through to open country, where they halted until the whole column had joined them. Essex was said to have flown like lightning between the vanguard, battle, and rearguard. The English admitted to the loss of three officers and several men although the Irish claimed 500 were killed.

According to Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland, "in the year 1599, Owny MacRory O'More cut off a great number of the troops of the Earl of Essex, in a defile in their progress through Leinster, at a place called from that circumstance Bearna-Cleitigh, signifying the Pass of Plumes, from the great quantity of plumes left there, which were worn in the helmets of the English knights who were slain."

Death In mid-August 1600, O'More and his men advanced towards Maryborough. He was shot and killed by Baron Mountjoy's soldiers in a skirmish on the borders of Queen's County.

English travel writer Fynes Moryson called O'More "a bloody and bold young man",

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