 On his father's death in 1581 he succeeded him as Earl of Thomond; by 1582 he had returned to Ireland.Thomond was assiduous in his attendance upon the lord-deputy in 1583 and 1584.Albert Pollard, who wrote the biographical entry for Thomond in the Dictionary of National Biography, states that his main object was to obtain an acknowledgment that the county of Clare, where his possessions were situated, was part of Munster, and thus to free it from the jurisdiction of the Connaught government, under which it had been placed previous to his father's death; but it was many years before he succeeded.