The Máire Rua of legend was quite a woman: tyrannical, power-hungry and as strong as a man, she is also described as being so lustful that she took a different soldier to bed every night, then had him killed in the morning. She also devised a cruel test for her many suitors. They had to stay in the saddle on her wild white stallion as it galloped towards the Cliffs of Moher. The story goes that when one suitor managed it and galloped back to claim his prize, Máire closed her castle gates against him. The stallion leapt the gates in desperation, dying horribly in the attempt. The stallion’s loyalty is remembered in the name of the castle, which is called Leamaneh, or, in Irish, Léim an Eich, which means Horse’s Leap.
The story of the real Máire Rua differs, in most respects. She was an ancestor of the barons of Inchiquin, County Clare, the senior branch of the important O’Brien clan. The real Máire probably became mixed up with the man-eating legend because she was indeed married several times, and each marriage was profitable. Tall and red-haired, Máire was also assertive and politically fickle, even for the notoriously flexible seventeenth century.
Máire Rua was born into affluence at Bunratty Castle, County Limerick. Her mother was the daughter of the third earl of Thomond and her father was Torlach MacMahon, lord of Clonderlaw, a barony midway between Kildysert and Kilrush in County Clare. When she reached marriageable age – about fifteen years old – a good match was made for her with a local landowning gentleman, Daniel Neylon. Daniel died when Máire Rua was still only in her twenties, leaving her with four children and total control of his estate at Dysert O’Dea, north County Clare.
This sort of wealthy independence was unusual and made Márie Rua a woman to be envied far and wide. But within the year, Máire had married again and this time it was for love. The bridegroom was a cousin of hers, Conor O’Brien. The couple lived on the O’Brien estate at Leamaneh, on the edge of the Burren, County Clare, where they rebuilt the family’s old tower house in modern (some said ostentatious) style. Between them they owned vast tracts of land, but they were greedy and wanted more – especially the fertile land that had recently been settled by the English planters.
As Oliver Cromwell’s reign of destruction gathered momentum in the 1640s, the opportunistic O’Briens took part in local skirmishes against recently settled English tenants. Máire Rua herself rode out in ambush gangs alongside Conor and killed men with her own hands. As Cromwell’s campaign of terror continued, they persisted in attacking and ambushing Cromwellian soldiers. However, one night a Cromwellian soldier managed to shoot Conor. After a happy twelve-year marriage, which had produced eight children, Máire Rua was a widow once more.
Within two years of Conor’s death, Cromwell had subjugated the Irish and the wily Máire Rua realised she was on the losing side. In order to protect Leamaneh and the inheritance of her O’Brien children, she switched allegiance. Around 1553 she married a low-ranking Cromwellian soldier, John Cooper, thereby making an Englishman the legal owner of Leamaneh. The Coopers had one son.
Once again Máire Rua had chosen a mate as greedy as herself, and she and John became very wealthy through clever land deals. Máire Rua lived in comfort for the next decade, but with the death of Cromwell and the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, she found herself on the wrong side yet again. Worse still, murder charges relating to the ambush parties she had taken part in twenty years earlier came back to haunt her. Her neck was saved when the easygoing Charles II granted her a pardon in 1664.
Máire Rua separated from John Cooper, who then lost all their money. Despite all her efforts of the previous decades, she was forced to sell up and leave Leamaneh. She took up residence at Dromoland Castle, County Clare. Through one of Máire’s sons, Donough O’Brien, who was created a baron by King James II, Dromoland eventually became the official seat of the barons of Inchiquin. Máire Rua died there peacefully in 1686 and was buried in Ennis Abbey beside Conor O’Brien, the love of her life.