Murray O'Daly: an Medieval Irish Poet's Event of the Killing

In his early life, Murray had killed a steward who had come to receive a due for his debt. Murray got in a disagreement with this man. Murray, taking an ax and making some whacks (just like Lizzie Borden), killed the innocent steward.

The steward had came to collect for a man named O'Donnell. Now O'Donnell pillaged the country to find Murray and to make him pay for the murder. Appealing for kindness and trying desperately to save his own skin, Murray wrote poetry praising O'Donnell. The poet called O'Donnell the 'kind hand of peace' while simultaneously running away from him. Murray wrote about how he killed that man in this part of a poem : 

Trifling is our difference with the man
A shepherd was affronting me
And I killed that clown
O God! is this a cause for enmity?

Take that...what you will.

His praising strategy actually worked; he was received back as a friend. 

Sources:

The Tribes of Ireland by Aenghus O'Daly p.6-8, on Google Books

Annals of the Four Masters by Unknown, M1213.8-9: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100005C/text005.html

Murray O'Daly is his anglicized name, his other name is Muireadhach Albanach Ó Dálaigh