Irish nationalists Patrick Pearse and Philip O'Sullivan Beare characterised O'More as a patriot who fought against the tyranny of the English, who had established plantations on his family's land.

[1][2] Unionist Peter Kerr-Smiley claimed that despite O'More's ostensible duty to protect Catholicism in Ireland, him and his followers were "nothing more or less than a band of lawless brigands whose chief aim was to attack small towns or villages, burn the Protestant houses, and murder and mutilate the inhabitants".

This is a different Thomas Butler than "Black Tom," 10th earl of Ormonde born in 1531 and James' first child and Red Piers' grandson.

[6] Upon their father's death at the hands of his brother Giolla Pádraig O'More, it seems that Margaret removed Rory and his siblings from Laois.

However their friendship was disrupted when the planters hanged two cousins allied to Rory, and O'More began corresponding with Chief Hugh McSeán O'Byrne of Glenmalure.

He was favoured by the weakness of the forces at the command of Cosby, the seneschal of Queen's County, and the temporary absence of Ormond in England.

In August, Browne's father-in-law Sir Nicholas White, seneschal of Wexford, aggressively attacked Fiach and his allies.

[4] The Butlers and the Fitzgeralds were united against him; but in November, when the Earl of Desmond escaped from Dublin, it was O'More who escorted him through Kildare and protected him in Laois.

The next year, the Earl of Kildare was charged with conspiring with the O'More and O'Byrne clans as part of a plot to become Lord Deputy.

[11] The man who would order his killing, Lord Deputy Sir Henry Sidney, called O'More 'an obscure and base varlet'.

[5] When on his tour in 1575, Sidney wrote of him: Rory Oge O'More hath the possession and settling-place in the Queen's County, whether the tenants will or no, as he occupieth what he listeth and wasteth what he will.

[5]Around New Year's Day 1577, a massacre of a group of Gaelic gentry by Sir Henry Sidney's troops took place at Mullaghmast in County Kildare.

He hoped for help from Spain, and with the backing of his friend John Burke, son of the Earl of Clanricarde, he prepared to retaliate for the massacre.

[5][14] Sidney wrote to the council later the same month: Rory Oge O'More and Cormock M'Cormock O'Conor have burnt the Naas.

Under cover of night, the huntsman guided English military leader Harpole and 200 soldiers towards O'More's residence, which was fortified by a large ditch.

He took his revenge in early 1578 by ruthlessly devastating the Anglo-Irish towns of Co. Carlow and Co. Kildare,[4][19] killing women and children alike.

[4] The Queen's agents had put an enormous reward for the time - £1,000 - on his head, as was their practice with Irish clan chiefs who resisted.

[19][21][4] According to Philip O'Sullivan Beare, "500 English and Irish mercenaries under command of Fitzpatrick, chief of Ossory, invaded Leix.

[O'More] led four hundred Irish against them, but before he came in sight, leaving his own men to reconnoitre the strength and position of the enemy, he fell by chance into their midst with only two companions, with whom he perished under many wounds.

On hearing this news, [O'More]'s soldiers filled with rage rushed thirsting for vengeance against the enemy and routed them, and after many were slain the commander with difficulty escaped on horseback.

Although the English administration was fearful of a revenge plot from Fiach,[4] "for a long time after [O'More's] death no one was desirous to discharge one shot against the soldiers of the Crown".