Shane O'Neill

Shane O'Neill (c. 1530 - June 2, 1567) was an Irish chieftain whose support was worth gaining by the English even during the lifetime of his father Conn O'Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone (died 1559). (Shane's mother, Tyrone's first wife,was born the daughter of Hugh Boy O'Neill of Clanaboy.) But rejecting overtures from Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, the lord deputy from 1556, Shane refused to help the English against the Scottish settlers on the coast of Antrim, allying himself instead with the MacDonnells, the most powerful of these immigrants.

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.