HUGH O'NEILL 1540-1616 MEMENTO MORI Study of a "Gaelic Chieftain", copyright Seán Ó' Brógáin Introduction On the 20 July 1616, news comes from Rome, Hugh O'Neill, the Great O'Neill , 2nd Earl of Tyrone is dead . T o the Crown in London, it was a great relief as the spectre of O' Neill in exile conspiring with foreign powers, gathering a foreign army of emigrés and mercenaries, was unsettling with the momentum of colonisation of Gaelic lands only beginning to gain traction . But O' N eill's death cannot be underestimated within Gaelic society, it caused much consternation, a realisation that the recent changes would now remain and the new reality of a foreign Hierarchy with the influx of colonist from Britain , had reduc ed many to bottom rung of the new society , with the a glimmer of a return to the old order getting dimmer. O' Neill's death even created a schism of sorts with i n the Bardic tradition,