Queen Elizabeth heard the appeal, but her Majesty was inexorable. It is more than probable that the O'Briens had caused, at least remotely, the alienation of their inheritance by their own domestic feuds. At the north extremity of Inishmore, the large island, not far from Port Murvey, the islanders show a field where human bones are frequently dug up, and for which reason it is called _Farran-na-Cann_, "the field of the sculls." Here the O'Briens are said at some remote period to have slaughtered each other almost to extermination. This sort of self-destruction is the blackest blot on the page of Irish history. It has always been, and alas! is Ireland's sad and unalienable inheritance. [Sidenote: AN INDUSTRIOUS DISCOVERER.] Of the patentee, John Rawson, little is remembered, save that in an instrument enrolled in the Rolls Office, in 1594, he is called "an industrious discoverer of lands for the Queen." The O'Flaherties had now the gratification of seeing the O'Briens, also an Irish sept, turned out of their inheritance, and the same granted to a stranger. [Sidenote: LYNCHES.] After this period the property and inheritance of the islands became and were vested in Sir Roebuck Lynch, of Galway. How Sir Roebuck became proprietor of the islands we have been unable, with certainty, to learn; but we might hazard a plausible guess that Sir John Rawson was granted whatever estate O'Brien had forfeited, and that what O'Brien did forfeit as mortgagor was the equity of redemption in the islands; that consequently Lynch, the mortgagee, remained in possession of the legal estate, and he, on Rawson failing to perform the covenants in mortgage deed contained, foreclosed the mortgage, and thus probably the fee and the equity of redemption became united in one and the same person, Sir Roebuck Lynch. A.D. 1618. "Indenture of June 20th, between Henry Lynch, son and heir of Roebuck Lynch, of Galway, deceased, of the one part, and William Anderson, of Aran, in said county, of the other, whereby he, the said Henry Lynch, for and in consideration of a sum of £50 of English currency to him paid, did thereby demise and assign all that and those, a moiety of the said three islands to him, the said William Anderson, his executors, administrators, and assigns, for a long term of years, excepting thereout" what must have then been in the islands, "_great trees_, mines, and minerals, and hawks, at an annual rent of £3 Irish, and a proportion of port corn, as therein is set forth." A.D. 1641. The clan Tiege O'Briens still claimed the islands as their legitimate inheritance, and, taking advantage of the troubles of this troubled year, prepared to attack them with a considerable force, and with the aid of a gentleman of extensive property and influence in the county of Clare, Boetius Clancy the younger. This project, however, was frustrated by the opposition of the Marquis of Clanricarde, then governor of the county of Galway.[14] [Sidenote: ARCHBISHOP O'QUEELY.]