Sir Brian O'Rourke (; c. 1540 – 1591) was first king and then lord of West Breifne in Ireland from 1566 until his execution in 1591. He reigned during the later stages of the Tudor conquest of Ireland and his rule was marked by English encroachments on his lands. Despite being knighted by the English in 1585, he would later be proclaimed a rebel and forced to flee his kingdom in 1590. He travelled to Scotland in early 1591 seeking assistance from King James VI, however, he was to become the first man extradited within Britain on allegations of crimes committed in Ireland and was sentenced to death in London in November 1591.
Early life
O'Rourke was a member of one of Gaelic Ireland's foremost dynasties, and was remarked upon as a handsome and unusually learned Gaelic lord. He assumed leadership of the dynasty in the mid-1560s having assassinated his elder brothers, but his territory of west Bréifne on the border of Ulster soon came under the administration of the newly created Presidency of Connacht. His territory was centred on the banks of Lough Gill and in the area of Dromahair. Foundations of the O'Rourke tower house within its bawn wall and circular moat can be seen today at Parke's Castle, close to Dromahair.
Although the English knighted O'Rourke, in time they became unsettled by him. The English Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, described him in 1575 as the proudest man he had dealt with in Ireland. Similarly, the Lord President of Connaught, Sir Nicholas Malby, put him down as, "the proudest man this day living on the earth". A decade later, Sir Edward Waterhouse thought of him as, "being somewhat learned but of an insolent and proud nature and no further obedient than is constrained by her Majesty's forces".
Connacht
O'Rourke was willing to deal with the government, and in an agreement concluded with Malby in 1577 he recognised the sovereignty of the Irish crown under Elizabeth I. But his allegiance was called in question within two years, during the Second Desmond Rebellion in Munster, when he rose out in defiance of the Connacht presidency. It was suspected his actions were induced by an involvement with the Old English family of the Dillons in adjacent Meath, who were engaged in an effort to spread their influence and possessions in the northern midlands, rather than by outright collusion in the rebel Geraldine cause.
Sir Richard Bingham took up the presidency of Connacht in 1584, when Sir John Perrot was appointed lord deputy of Ireland. Ó Ruairc immediately complained of harassment by the new president in the spring and summer of that year, and in September Bingham was ordered by his superior in Dublin Castle to temporise and refrain from making expeditions into Bréifne. Although part of the province of Connacht, the territory was not subject to a Crown sheriff, and O'Rourke was happy to preserve his freedom of action. He did maintain relations with the Dublin government by his attendance at the opening of parliament in 1585, where he was noted to have dressed all in black in the company of his strikingly beautiful wife.
In preparation for the Composition of Connacht, whereby the lords of that province were to enter an agreement with the government to regularise their standing, O'Rourke surrendered his lordship in 1585. He was thus due to receive a regrant of his lands by knight-service in return for a chief horse and an engraved gold token to be presented to the lord deputy each year at midsummer. It seemed a balanced compromise, but O'Rourke declined to accept the letters patent and never regarded his terms as binding.
By May 1586 the tension with the president had mounted, and O'Rourke brought charges against him before the council at Dublin, which were dismissed as vexatious. Bingham believed that Perrot had been behind this attempt on his authority, but there was little he could do before his recall to England for service in the Low Countries in 1587; upon the president's departure (he was to return within a year), Perrot slashed O'Rourke's annual composition dues and, while permitting him to levy certain illegal exactions, appointed the Lord of West Bréifne sheriff of Leitrim for a term of two years.
Rebellion
O'Rourke remained unhappy with English interference in his territories, and he was also content to be described as a leading Catholic lord. After Perrot's departure, he assisted at least eighty survivors of the Spanish Armada – including Francisco de Cuellar – to depart the country in the winter of 1588, and was regarded as friendly to future receptions of Spanish forces. Although not proclaimed as a rebel, he put up a forcible resistance to the presidency – again under Binghams's command – and would not be bridled.