Daniel O'Donnell

Daniel O'Donnell (1666–1735) was a brigadier-general in the Irish Brigade in the French service. He belonged to the derbhfine of the last Chief of the Name of Clan O'Donnell and Lord of Tyrconnel. Biography O'Donnell was a descendant of Hugh the Dark or Aedh Dubh, called "the Achilles of the Gaels of Erin", an elder brother of Manus O'Donnell lord of Tyrconnel. His father, Terence or Turlough O'Donnell, and his mother, Johanna, also an O'Donnell, were both of county Donegal. O'Donnell was born in 1666, and was appointed a captain of foot in King James's army on 7 December 1688, and in 1689 was acting colonel. Passing into the service of France after the treaty of Limerick, he could only obtain the rank of captain in the marine regiment of the Irish Brigade. This regiment had been raised in Ireland for King James in 1689, and was commanded by Henry FitzJames, grand prior of England, a natural son of the king and brother of the Duke of Berwick. O'Donnell, whose commission was dated 4 February 1692, served with this regiment on the coast of Normandy during the projected invasion of England, which was averted by Edward Russell's victory at the naval Battle of La Hogue, and afterwards in Germany in the campaigns of 1693–1695. O'Donnell's regiment was reformed in that of Albemarle in 1698, and his commission as captain was redated on 27 April 1698. He served in Germany in 1701, and afterwards in five campaigns in Italy, where he was present at Luzzara, the reduction of Borgoforte, Nago, Arco, Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua, and Chivasso, and the Battle of Cassano, and was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment at the siege and Battle of Turin.