O'Sullivan Beare (Beara)

The O Sullivan Beare line is extensive and its’ genealogy quite well documented. However, successive O Sullivan Beare leaders don’t necessarily directly equate as blood heirs. Oh yes, an O Sullivan succeeded an O Sullivan but not necessarily as father and son. This clan’s motto is Lamh Foistenach Abu ‘ The open hand defying.’

Resistance to English rule has always been a hallmark of the clan. We were also notable for our patronage of the Franciscan Order. Dermot O Sullivan, in 1540, had founded Bantry Abbey. Both are reflected in a letter from Sir Warham Sentleger to Mr. Secretary Fenton, written at Cork, March 24, 1582, wherein he describes an encounter.

"Good Mr. Secretary, - The best news I have to advertise you is that your brother James escaped of late, a very narrow escape of being taken by the western traitors; he now knowing of the defeat of his soldiers, nor yet of the abandoning of the Abbey of Bantry, sent certain boats from Bearhaven thither with provisions for the soldiers, who, mistrusting nothing, came to the Abbey, thinking to unload their provision, and the men being landed, the traitors lying close in the Abbey issued suddenly out and took the men and boats with the victuals, and hanged the men. Your brother coming after in another boat, not knowing the traitors to be in the Abbey, was unawares until pursued with four boats full of traitors, who had taken him if night had not favored him, which being dark, he entered in among the rocks where he was forced to hide himself three days and three nights without any sustenance; and so with great oil the fourth day he reached the Castle of Bearhaven, where he remaineth sick, by the great toll he had upon the sea and the cold entertainment he had upon the rocks". The former site of this Abbey is now topped with a large granite cross, erected to the memory of famine victims, by brothers Tim and Maurice Healy.

The fate of history fell particularly hard on Donal Cam O Sullivan Beare (1560 - 1618) during the reign of Elizabeth. Headquartered at Dunboy (prounounced Dun-bwee) Castle, he "marched with O’Neill to an Irish battlefield" and stood with another Chieftain, Aodh Ruadh (Red Hugh) O’Donnell in 1602. O’Neill and O’Donnell had marched South with their armies from Tyrone to relieve Ireland’s Spanish allies who were under the command of Don Juan de Aquila and besieged at Kinsale by an English army superior in number. Sullivan brought our clansmen to join the national ranks. On the night of December 23, 1601, the Irish forces and Spaniards attacked. We were defeated and thrown into disorder. Our Spanish ally closed shop and surrendered the town.
De Aquila delivered the forts of Dunboy, Baltimore and Castlehaven into hands of the besiegers. Donal learned of this and decided to act. He secretly had some of his men inside Dunboy Castle loosen a wall stone into which he would re-take the castle. Eighty of his followers entered the breach at night and seized it, as he alleged, for the king of Spain. Three of the intruders were killed. In a letter to King Philip of Spain he explained his actions:

"My Lord and King,
...upon the landing in Castlehaven of your generals with a fleet and men from your Greatness, I came to their presence tendering my obeisance unto them in the name of your Highness...and yielded out of my mere love and good will, without compulsion or composition, into their hands, in the name of your Majesty, not only my castle and haven called Berehaven, but also my wife, my children, my country, lordships and all my possessions for ever, to be disposed of at your pleasure...Notwithstanding, my gracious lord, conclusions of peace were assuredly agreed upon betwixt Don Juan de Aquila and the English - a fact pitiful, and (according to my judgment) against all right and humane conscience. Amongst other places whereof your Greatness was dispossessed in that manner - which were neither yielded or taken to the end they should be delivered to the English - Don Juan tied himself to deliver my castle and haven, the only key of mine inheritance, whereupon the living of many thousand persons doth rest that live some twenty leagues upon the sea coast, into the hands of my cruel, cursed, misbelieving enemies, - a thing I fear in respect of the execrebleness, inhumanity, and ungratefulness of the fact, if it take effect as it was plotted, that will give cause to other men not to trust any Spaniard hereafter with their bodies or goods upon these causes...My lord, in that I judge this dishonourable act to be against your honour and pleasure, considering the harm that might ensue to the service of your majesty, and the everlasting overthrow that might happen to me and my poor people, such as might escape the sword (if any should). I have taken upon me with the help of God - to offer to keep my castle and haven from the hands of mine enemies until further news and order from your highness."

At this time the Province of Munster was besieged by the English commanders. They ‘harried, ravaged and devastated all the rest of the province.’ The historian Leland wrote, "The southern province seemed to be totally depopulated and, except within the cities, exhibited as hideous scene of famine and desolation." An English poet, Edmund Spenser, a private secretary in the employ of one of Elizabeth’s chief governors of Ireland, recommended the policy of starvation to be employed against the Irish. In his View of the Present State of Ireland he wrote, "Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, yet, ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stone heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrious, happy where they could find them...in a short space there was almost none left and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast." His words sound as if he were writing of the period of the ‘Great Hunger’ that was to take place 250 years later.

With the Spaniards in capitulation, Lord Mountjoy marched as far as the Abbey of Bantry and discovered Donal still continued his works about the castle. One of Sullivan’s captains, Tyrell, had a considerable force prepared to dispute the passage of his army through the territory between Bantry and Berehaven.

Dunboy Castle was besieged beginning on June 6, 1602 and lasted until the 18th. The garrison of 143 men defended against a larger force of over 2,000. At long last the besiegers were able to gain entrance into the ruins of the castle where hand-to-hand fighting ensued, the defenders being gradually driven to the cellar for their last stand. Those who got outside were cut down. Armed men in three boats in the water shot or speared those attempting to swim across to Bere island. The final scene was recorded in the Pacata Hibernia:

"The eighteenth (June) in the morning three and twenty more likewise rendered themselves simply to Captain Blundell, who the night before had the guard, and after their cannoniers, being two Spaniards and an Italian (for the rest were slain) likewise yielded themselves; then (Richard) MacGeohagan, chief commander of the place, being mortally wounded with divers shot in his body, the rest made choice of one Thomas Taylor, an Englishman’s son (the dearest and inwardest man with Tyrell and married to his niece) to be their chief, who, having nine barrels of powder, drew himself and it into the vault and there sat down by it, with a light match in his hand, vowing and protesting to set it on fire, and blow up the castle, himself, and all the rest, except they might have promise of life, which being by the Lord President refused, his lordship gave direction for a new battery upon the vault, intending to bury them in the ruins thereof; and after a few times discharged, and the bullets entering amongst them into the cellar, the rest that were with Taylor, partly by intercession, but chiefly by compulsion (threatening to deliver him up if he were obstinate), about ten of the clock in the morning of the same day constrained him to render simply....Sir George Thornton, the sergeant major, Captain Roger Harvie, Captain Power, and others entering the vault to receive them, Captain Power found the said Richard lying there mortally wounded (as before mentioned), who, perceiving Taylor and the rest ready to render themselves, raised himself from the ground, snatching a light candle, and staggering therewith to a barrel of powder (which for that purpose was unleaded), offering to cast it into the same, Captain Power took and held him in his arms with intent to make him prisoner, until he was by our men (who perceived his intent) instantly killed; and then Taylor and the rest were brought prisoners to the camp....The same day fifty-eight were executed in the market place...The whole number of the ward consisted of one hundred and forty-three selected fighting men, being the best choice of all their forces, of which no one man escaped, but were either slain, executed, or buried in the ruins, and so obstinate and resolved a defence had not been seen within this Kingdom."
Donal O Sullivan’s trek to O’Rourke’s land in Breffney is an epic tale, most recently told in novel form in Morgan Llywelyn’s The Last Prince of Ireland. About one thousand followers left Glengarriffe when they started out, only 400 being fighting men. By the time they entered O’Rourke’s castle there were only 18 fighting men and sixteen non combatants; only one woman survived the hardships. A bitter sidenote to this epic tale concerns ‘the Queen’s O Sullivan,’ referring to Sir Owen O Sullivan, an uncle of Donal’s. Prior to 1602 he had been a claimant to the chieftaincy and to Donal O Sullivan’s Berehaven territory. The dispute went to trial before the high courts of England where Sir Owen lost. Afterwards he was a bitter enemy of Donal and took part with the English in the above-mentioned operations against Dunboy and Dursey Island. After Donal fled he secured possession of Carriganass Castle. It is now a picturesque ruin on the banks of the Ovane River, within a few miles of Bantry.


Donal O Sullivan, one of Ireland’s wild geese, fled Ireland to Corunna, Spain. There, in July, 1608, he was murdered by John Bath, an Anglo-Irishman. At a monastery not far from Madrid, Don Philip O Sullivan, cousin of Donal, had argued with Bath, apparently over a matter of a loan given to Bath. When the latter insulted the O Sullivan family, Don Philip and Bath fought with swords. Don Philip apparently could have slain Bath but did not because of men sent by Donal and two Spanish Knights protected him. When Donal arrived, clasping a rosary in his left hand, Bath, unobserved, caught Donal looking the other way. Bath pierced him twice, through the left shoulder and through the throat.

Don Philip’s father, Dermot, uncle of Donal, died at the age of 100 and is buried in the Franciscan Church at Corunna; his mother, who died afterwards, is interred in the same tomb. A sister Helena was lost at sea on a return voyage to Ireland. Another sister became a nun of St. Ursula in Spain. Don Philip, a native of Dursey Island, was a talented writer. He rose to the level of Commander in the Spanish Navy. His history of the family can still be found under the title "Ireland under Elizabeth." by Don Philip O'Sullivan Bear, translanted from the original Latin by M.J. Byrne.

When the Cromwellian confiscations began, their lands in Kerry passed to Sir William Petty, physician-general to the army and director of the famous Down Survey. ‘Following the Restoration, Petty managed to get into good graces of Charles II and had his acquisitions in Kerry confirmed to him even in the teeth of a petition from the O Sullivan Beare of the day, Donal Cron, the loyalist. ’O Sullivan never recovered an acre of his lands and in 1699 his successor was described by a visitor to Bearehaven as residing ‘in a cabin at the foot of the hill.’ According to Lyne, O Sullivan Beare was one of the last to quit the field against the Cromwellians and, as late as 1653, was still holding out on Dursey Island. He apparently got away to the Continent that year.

Lyne also reports the harpist Arthur O’Neil, who was a friend of the famous Turlough O’Carolan, recounted a visit to the Rossmackowen branch of the family:
"I spent one Christmas with a gentleman that lived in Berehaven named Murtagh Mac Owen O Sullivan, who lived in a princely style. My boy came to me one morning when in bed, who desired me to bless myself: I asked him why so. ‘Och, Sir! There is a pipe of wine and two hogsheads of some other liquor standing up in the hall with the heads out of them and a wooden cup swimming in each of them for anyone that pleases to drink their skinful.’ I mention this merely to record the hospitality of the gentlemen of the province of Munster."

Visitors to the lakes of Killarney in County Kerry will find a stretch of water known as O Sullivan’s Punch Bowl. The tombs of many distinguished family members are interred at Muckross Abbey.