Con MacNeill MacBrian Fertagh O’Neill was the last Gaelic Lord of Upper Clandeboye. This area of North Down, 224 townlands, reached from Belfast to Bangor, to Portavogie, to Crossgar and Lisburn. Con was born c.1574 at Castle Reagh, a tower house in the hills above East Belfast, a location with fantastic views over Belfast Lough. ‘The Eagle’s Nest’, is no more, but the mound where he was inaugurated in 1601 stands nearby, in private woodland. The rude stone chair that stood on the mound, a unique artefact with a long and colourful history, is now preserved in the Ulster Museum.

Con was a relation of Hugh O’Neill, the powerful Earl of Tyrone, bane of English Rule in Ireland. In 1607, a few years after the Irish defeat at Kinsale, Hugh O’Neill and other Gaelic Lords left for the Continent in the ‘Flight of the Earls’, marking the final defeat of native power in Ireland. Con was a minor ruler who remained behind. He was of the old Gaelic order, and the native laws, customs and language were being displaced by those of aggressive and ambitious English and Scottish Planters.

Con was imprisoned twice by Sir Arthur Chichester in Carrickfergus Castle, and was lucky to keep his life. During his second imprisonment he escaped with the help of a Scot, Hugh Montgomery, and lived for a while at Braidstane Castle, Ayrshire. He met with King James I in London and was pardoned on condition of signing over one third of his land to Montgomery, and a further third to James Hamilton, another Scot. He had now lost all his coastal territory and the most fertile agricultural areas.

After being politically neutralised, he sold off more lands, a few townlands at a time. Only a few remained in his ownership when he died in 1619 in a humble dwelling at Ballymenoch, near Holywood. Con was buried at Ballymaghan, former site of an ancient, ruined, church near Belfast. Castle Reagh fell into ruins and the stone was quarried for nearby buildings. Con is remembered in the name of the Connswater River, spanned by the ancient stone Con O’Neill’s Bridge and Connsbrook Avenue, as well as the Connswater Shopping Centre.

Con had two sons who survived until adulthood, Con Og was killed at Clones when fighting on the Irish side in the 1641 rebellion. His other son, Daniel, moved to London and became a very rich and powerful Royalist soldier in the courts of King Charles I and Charles II. He had no children, died in 1664 and was buried in Kent. The family line of Con O’Neill was no more.