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Mountjoy, anxious to engage him before O'Neil should come up, detached a numerically superior force, under Carew, for that purpose: but O'Donnell, evacuating his quarters by night, marched over the mountain of Slieve Felim, casting away much of his heavy baggage, and before calling halt was 32 Irish miles distant from his late encampment.
While Bruce and O'Neil were coming up from the north, Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, as if to provide occupation for the Earl of Ulster, attacked and sacked the castle and town of Sligo, and wasted the adjacent country. The Earl, on hearing of the landing of the Scots, had mustered his forces at Athlone, and compelled the unwilling attendance of Felim O'Conor, with his clansmen.
And there was not a man but quailed as the hero rushed upon the Ultonians and slew a thousand men. When Concobar heard this, he sent for that Wise Man who in the house of Felim the Harper had foretold the sorrow that would come upon his realm. And when the old man had come, Concobar said, 'I swear that I mean no harm unto the sons of Usna, yet will they slay every Ultonian in the land.
One gleam of patriotic virtue illumines the annals of the house of O'Brien, during the first forty years of the century when, in the year 1225, Donogh Cairbre assisted Felim O'Conor to resist the Anglo-Norman army, then pouring over Connaught, in the quarrel of de Burgh.
At the beginning of August in the same year, in pursuance of his plan, Felim mustered the most numerous force which Connaught had sent forth, since the days of Cathal More. Under his leadership marched the Prince of Meath, the lords of Breffni, Leyny, Annally, Teffia, Hy-Many, and Hy-Fiachra, with their men.
We have before mentioned that one of the first successes obtained by Bruce was through the withdrawal of Felim O'Conor from the Red Earl's alliance.
And it was told him that Concobar with his chief lords would visit the castle. Then Felim made a feast, and there was great rejoicing, and all men were glad. But in the midst of the feast an old magician, who was of those that had come with the King, stood up before the great gathering.
The spirit of exaggeration common in most accounts of killed and wounded, has described this day as fatal to the name and race of O'Conor, who are represented as cut off to a man in the conflict; the direct line which Felim represented was indeed left without an immediate adult representative; but the offshoots of that great house had spread too far and flourished too vigorously to be shorn away, even by so terrible a blow as that dealt at Athenry.
In olden days, when many Kings reigned throughout the Green Island of Erin, none was greater than the great Concobar. So fair was his realm that poets sang its beauty, and such the wonder of his palace that the sweetest songs of Erin were of its loveliness. In a castle of this fair realm dwelt Felim, a warrior and harper dear unto the King.
Then Nathos spake: 'The fair maiden whom ye behold is none other than Deirdre, the daughter of Felim the Harper. From this day I hold her as my wedded wife, and to you she cometh as a sister. But when the brothers heard, they were filled with fear, for had not the King Concobar vowed that this same fair maid should be his Queen?
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