Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh
Irish king
Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh (fl. 1244 – 1273) was King of Iar Connacht and Chief of the Name.
Biography
Ruaidhri was a brother of the preceding chief, Morogh. Ruaidhri and his brother may have accompanied Felim mac Cathal Crobderg Ua Conchobair (reigned 1233–1256), on an expedition to Wales in 1245 under Henry III.
It is not known when Ruaidhri became chief, so it is not certain if an annals entry of 1248 refers to him. It states "The entire of Conmaicne Mara was plundered by the English. The English went upon an expedition against O'Flaherty, who defeated them, and killed numbers of them." An entry of 1256 - "Mac William Burke set out on a predatory expedition against Rory O'Flaherty; he plundered Gno-More and Gno-Beg, and took possession of all Lough Oirbsion (Lough Corrib)" - leaves no doubt that by then he ruled the area.
It is not known when he ceased to be chief. The annals for 1273 state that "Roderic O'Flaherty was banished from West Connaught", but not by whom, or under what circumstances. James Hardiman says of him:
he found, by experience, that it was safer to rely on the battle-axes of his bold Galloglas (Gallowglass) than on appeals to the sovereign against Anglo-Norman outrage in Ireland. In his time the Joyces, a family of British extraction, settled in the northern part of the territory, by the permission and under the protection of the O'Flaherties.
These years also marked the final eradication of any authority the Ó Flaithbheartaigh had over their original homeland of Uí Briúin Seóla.
“Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh” enters the record as irish king. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ruaidhri, Flaithbheartaigh and Irish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Ruaidhri, Flaithbheartaigh and Irish provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 14, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7375658. The first chronological checks are 1244, 1273, 1233 and 1256.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ruaidhri Ó Flaithbheartaigh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.