Shane O'Neill: 'The Grand Disturber' of Elizabethan Ireland

An historically rooted and dramatic telling of the life of Shane O'Neill, 'a rogue and a rakehell' who was the arch-foe of young Queen Elizabeth I in the early years of her reign. Needing to assert her absolute power, she denied his claim to succeed his father as Earl of Tyrone, setting off a chain of events that nearly saw the English driven out of Ireland. With his victories rose his ambitions, until only the kingship of Ireland would satisfy him. This man is known to history as 'Shane the Proud'. At the center of O'Neill's trajectory is a passionate love story. He was helped in his endeavors by a young Scottish Countess who was married to an old man, an old man who was Shane's 'chiefest rival', and allied to the English. The fiery redhead, Lady Katherine, delivered up her husband to Shane, and thereafter became his wife. The 'irregularities' of this scandalous coupling have heretofore kept Shane O'Neill from the canon of Irish heroes, but this fresh telling, reflecting newly discovered information and reconsidered scholarship sheds surprising new light, and restores his place in the pantheon of Ireland's heroes. This is the epic story of Shane O'Neill's rising ambitions, a powerful tale of a Gaelic world struggling to survive, of a forbidden love that set a course of events that nearly destroyed the ambitions of Tudor England in Ireland. This was the inevitable clash of two dynasties, of two dissonant civilizations, and of two headstrong powerful individuals, Shane and Elizabeth. With their irreconcilable obligations to history, they were destined to match wits, to cross swords, and to see this contention to its bitter end.

Author: Brian Mallon
Publisher: Redbranch Press
Published: 07/02/2015
Pages: 780
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.26lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 1.55d
ISBN: 9780692502723

About the Author
Brian Mallon is heretofore known chiefly as a film and stage actor. He is a life-member of New York's famed 'Actors Studio'. He wrote and starred in a one-man show, 'Secrets of the Celtic Heart, ' that was directed by Ellen Burstyn, and won a 'Best Play Dramalogue Award.' He wrote 'On the Square', a play about George M. Cohan, as well as 'Red Hand' a drama of Shane O'Neill's life. As an actor, he toured the British Isles, playing Richard Burton to great acclaim in Mark Jenkins' award winning drama "Playing Burton". Small-screen credits include "Guests of the Nation" for PBS Great Performances. On the big screen, Mallon acted in "Some Mother's Son" with Helen Mirren, "The Informant", and most notably starred as Gen. Hancock in "Gettysburg", a role he reprised in "Gods and Generals". He speaks Irish (Gaelic) and Welsh, and has translated a good deal of poetry from those languages. Mallon recently hosted and narrated a two-hour documentary on the Irish Brigade for the Smithsonian Channel, as well as a version in Irish for TG4 in Ireland.


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