Rosa O'Neill (née O'Doherty; Irish: Róisín Ní Dhochartaigh; c.1588–1660) was a member of the Ó Dochartaigh (English: O'Doherty) noble family of Inishowen in County Donegal who lived during the late Tudor and Stuart eras.[1]
Rosa was the daughter of Sir John O'Doherty and the younger sister of Sir Cathaoir Ó Dochartaigh (Sir Cahir O'Doherty). The Ó Dochartaigh (O'Doherty) dynasty were the traditional rulers of Inishowen in the north-west of Ulster. Sir Cathaoir fought on the Crown's side during Tyrone's Rebellion (1594-1603). In 1608, angered at his treatment by local officials, the young Sir Cathaoir launched O'Doherty's Rebellion by burning Derry. Sir Cathaoir was defeated and killed at the Battle of Kilmacrennan, and Inishowen was confiscated from the family.
Rosa had earlier been married to Cathbarr Ó Domhnaill (Cathbarr O'Donnell), the younger brother of both Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill II (Red Hugh O'Donnell II) and Ruaidrí, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell. Both Cathbarr and Rosa accompanied his brother, Lord Tyrconnell, to Continental Europe during the 1607 Flight of the Earls. Her husband died of fever in Italy the following year, leaving Rosa a widow at the age of twenty.[2]
She remarried in 1613–14 to Owen Roe O'Neill, an Irish officer serving in the Spanish army who she met in Flanders.[3]
In 1642, when Owen Roe returned to Ireland to serve the Irish Confederacy during the War of Three Kingdoms, Rosa accompanied him. She arrived after her husband, landing at Wexford in the company of Colonel Richard O'Farrell with supplies and reinforcements for her husband's Ulster Army.[4] Owen Roe became a leading figure of the Irish Confederacy, enjoying mixed fortunes but winning a notable success against Scottish forces at the Battle of Benburb in 1646.
Owen Roe O'Neill died at Cloughoughter Castle in County Cavan in November 1649. Rosa had been in Galway and arrived a few days after her husband's death by natural causes.[5] She went to Flanders following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Rosa lived in Brussels until her death in 1660. She was buried at the Franciscan College of St. Anthony of Padua in Louvain.[6]