~hveeneY. 'this seige was only abandoned when J ,OOO men under Sir "Niall Garbh O'Do'lnell and the English c.aotains from Li.Cford W€'rc within a shat c'iotac.ce of th: <'<lstlc. On their urrival E :1ghan ::.\1.ic :Sweer.~y took the oath of allegiance to the Queen a:1d in return was given a ,:arger garri·-on an! a promise of an Eng- "lish grant of Doe castle and lands on the same terms a3 those granted to Sior Miles. In .July 1601 Red Hugh descended upcn Doe in one of hiJ lightening raids and he forced his foster brother to line up 1Nith him a.rfain. His loyalty to O'Donnell was however dead and thenceforth -~ henevcr a Mac Sweeney Doe is me:-:.tioned, as one of O'Do•rnell's field officer:;, we can t.ike it that Sir Miles Mac E:".vceney was the person concerned. In fact he was the only Mac Sweer:cy of rote who accompanied Red Hugh O'Donne!J in his famous march to Khsale in November rno1 (J7). During all these month> Eoghan og 111 was the de facto Lord of Doc Cast!e and in March 1602, he again submitted to Sir Her:ry Dowrra, who left him in pos'cosic-n of the crastle. In Dowcra 1-:c · hcd a very staunch friend ancl this friendship was all the more strengthened by Dowcra's di~tain for Sir Mi:es, then a hunted man "on his keeping" in the Rls3es. Dowcra's friendship with Eoghan was not misplaced for when in the early part of 1603 Sir Niall (;arbh O'Donnell rash'.y gr atified his vanity on the inauguration stone at Kilmacren~an, and sought to raise the st:-indard of i·evolt. frnm 'DoC' Cast.IC', Engh:m Og, at once delivered ii to Dowcra "requesting he might tave it back agair, when the garrison I ~h:m:d out in be withdrawn, which I gave my w::>rd he should" ( Ul). This !JromisP., Dewer a, a very honourable En~lishma3 '\\ ·:i;; unabic tu fu!fil for whe11 the O'Donnell;; (HJ) returned frnm London, some months later, Rory O'D:mnet was E·arl of Tir~onail and car:ried home, among::t -others, a royal warrant givi!~g him the custody of Doe GJstle, which .D~1wcra tel~s ·US, "becau:;e of my pmrr.ise l opposed against ·as much as I could, but •with lost labour" ('~0). Eog!-:an og Mac Sweeney Doe wa;; executed at Lifford following a :;essions he!d there in .1605 and even h the absence of iany details of his crime it would be safe to assume that Doe c-astle figured prominer..tly in . his. inditement (21 r The fo:bwing year Mac Sweeney's young brother, Niall Mac Sweeney, and Caffer og O'Donnell, "near kinsmen of the Earl of Tirconail and Sir .Nic1ll O'Donnell" seized Doe c<ist'c and drove out the Earl's warder and rnen (22). Their cx- ('llSC was that E<irl Rory hatl ·wronged them and as he was .absent in E·ig!and tht! Lord Deputy ordered Sir Richard Hansard of Lifford to call on the:>e young men to come forward peaceably and to state thei~ grievances (2:3). They did not respond to the challenge ar:d when the Earl returned .l":orne, a short time later, he, as Lord Lieutenant of C:)Unty Donegal, was compe:Jed by, his office, to proclaim martial law and to mustc~· force.:; for t.~c stir,- pc~·~si nn of hi11 b!: ~: nwn,
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