Phelim Caoch (the blind) was a son of Conn Bacach, then The O'Neill, lord of Tyrone.
[3] He had been killed after a longstanding quarrel with his father's principal Galloglass commander Gillespic MacDonnell.
[4] Phelim Caoch was assassinated in the months just prior to his father's submission to King Henry VIII.
After his death, Conn Bacach had no nominated taniste and capriciously passed over the interests of his son Shane, a boy of only six or seven years old, by favoring a sixteen-year-old affiliated adoptee[5] named Mathew Kelly, (known in Irish as 'Feardorcha') the son of Alison Kelly (né, Roth), his current mistress.
[6] After Phelim Caoch's assassination Gillespic MacDonnell's galloglass sept became committed the adherents of Mathew (Feardorcha) and his descendants, and consistent supporters of English policy.