with British settler families who paid higher rents. In summer 1641 O'Neill was elected MP for Dungannon (Parliament of Ireland constituency) in County Tyrone in a by-election for the Irish Parliament of 1640–1649 replacing Thomas Madden, who had died in office. His first wife died in September 1641 shortly before the rebellion. He married secondly Louise, daughter of Thomas Preston, 1st Viscount Tara, a younger brother of the 5th Viscount Gormanston. Rebellion Like many Irish Catholics and especially Gaelic Irish Catholics, O'Neill felt threatened by the Protestant English government of Ireland. In particular, they were aggrieved at Catholic exclusion from public office and the continual confiscations of Catholic-owned land. Another reason pressing him into desperate action was that Phelim was deep in debt. Plot This fear reached its high point in the late 1630s and early 1640s, when Thomas Wentworth, Lord Deputy for Charles I, was known to be planning widespread new plantations. A crisis point was reached in 1641, when the Scottish Covenanters and English Long Parliament threatened to invade Ireland to finally subdue Catholicism there. In this atmosphere of fear and paranoia, Phelim O'Neill became involved in a plot hatched by fellow Gaelic Irish Catholics from Ulster, to seize Dublin and swiftly take over the other important towns of Ireland. After this, they planned to issue their demands for full rights for Catholics and Irish self-government in the King's name. O'Neill's role was to take towns and fortified places in the north of the country whereas Maguire was tasked with seizing Dublin Castle. O'Neill was a latecomer to the plot, brought into it by Lord Maguire in early September 1641. On 23 October 1641 he surprised Lord Caulfeild in Charlemont Fort. O'Neill was instrumental in shaping many of the political objectives of the rebellion. He rapidly assumed command of the Ulster rising. Outbreak However, the plan to take Dublin was bungled by two conspirators, Maguire and MacMahon, who were captured by the authorities. O'Neill went ahead and started the rebellion in the north, capturing the important fort of Charlemont but quickly found that he could not control the Irish Catholic peasantry he had raised. These people, many of whom had been displaced during the Plantation of Ulster, began attacking the Scottish and English Protestant settlers with varying intensity over a period of 5 months. Being in command, O'Neill has been blamed for complicity or lack of oversight in