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Updated: June 5, 2025
The death of O'Doherty, early in this year, threw the succession to Innishowen into confusion, and while O'Donnell was personally endeavouring to settle conflicting claims, Nial Garve seized on the famous Franciscan monastery which stood at the head of the bay, within sight of the towers of Donegal Castle. Hugh Roe immediately invested the place, which his relative as stoutly defended.
There were thus quartered in Ulster at this period the 4,000 foot and 400 horse under Dowcra, chiefly on the Foyle, with whatever companies of Kerne adhered to Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve; with Chichester in Carrickfergus there were 850 foot and 150 horse; with Danvers in Armagh, 750 foot and 100 horse; in Mount Norris, under Sir Samuel Bagnal, 600 foot and 50 horse; in and about Downpatrick, lately taken by the Deputy, under Moryson, 300 foot; in Newry, under Stafford, 400 foot and 50 horse; in Charlemont, with Williams, 300 foot and 50 horse; or, in all, of English regulars in Ulster alone, 7,000 foot and 800 horse.
Bruce took to the heather, pursued by the Macdowals no less than by the English; his queen was captured, his brother Nigel was executed; he cut his way to the wild west coast, aided only by Sir Nial Campbell of Loch Awe, who thus founded the fortune of his house, and by the Macdonalds, under Angus Og of Islay. Fortune had turned.
In 916 Nial became high king, but the place of honor was also the place of danger, and soon he led the mustered hosts of the north against the pagan foreigners, who held Dublin and Fingal, and he fell in battle at Rathfarnham. A poem, preserved for us ever since, tells us that Gormlai was present at his burial and chanted a funeral ode. Her long widowhood was a period of disconsolate mourning.
King Nial inherited a disputed sovereignty from his predecessor, and the Southern annalists say he did homage to Felim of Munster, while those of the North and with them the majority of historians reject this statement as exaggerated and untrue.
Her first husband was Cormac, son of Cuilenan, before he entered holy orders; her second, Kerball of Leinster, and her third, Nial Black-Knee. She was an accomplished poetess, besides being the daughter, wife, and mother of king's, yet after the death of Nial she "begged from door to door," and no one had pity on her fallen state.
After sitting before it an entire month, with no other advantage than a sally repulsed, he concluded to go into winter quarters. Arthur O'Neil and Nial Garve had the dignity of knighthood conferred upon them, and were, besides, recognized for the day by the English officials as the future O'Neil and O'Donnell.
But no systematic attempt none at least of historic memory was made to convert the remoter Gael and the other races then inhabiting Alba the Picts, Britons, and Scandinavians, until the year of our era, 565, Columba or COLUMBKILL, a Bishop of the royal race of Nial, undertook that task, on a scale commensurate with its magnitude.
The kind generous Nial, who tried to get everybody out of difficulty, perished by fire. His sons by their violent conduct had incensed numerous people against them.
Of the free clans, the most illustrious were those of whose Princes we have traced the record the descendants of Nial in Ulster and Meath, of Cathaeir More in Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free clans to six in the southern half-kingdom, and six in the north; and the unfree also to six.
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