Ti Tra Li My Charts Early O Clerys_and the End of Aidhne

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32. Adapting Dubhaltach to Cucogry. Step one, the first seven generations:
I guess you know what I had to do. I had to try to join these two genealogies and make one genealogy

out of them. The one genealogy will be based on Cucogry O’Clery’s genealogy, the only one that contains both
O’Clery and O’Heynes. To solve the problem of what seems like two different O’Heyne families, the one shown
by Dubhaltach, branching off at a son of Cléireach, and the other shown by Cucogry, branching off at a great great
great great grandson of Cléireach, is to assert that there were two branches from the Cléireach stem line that later
on in history received a single name, that is, the Uí hEidhin or O’Heyne family. I don’t see any other way to look
at it.

(25) Cucogry O’Clery’s Genealogy in the O’Heyne and O’Brien Setting, Upper Section
(Showing Seven Generations from Cléireach only)

Cléireach Lachtan Maonach 1
2
fl | 850 || 3

[1] Maol-fabhaill, i. Eidhean Lorcan Murchad 4

________________________ _r._| ? 866-890 ?d. | 923-9 d. | 896 K 5

|| d. | 890 || 6
7
?Eochagán [2] Tighernach [4] Maolcherarda, i. Flann Cennétic Earca

Ó Cléirigh (1st) Ó Cléirigh O Cléirigh ||

d. | 950 r . | 890-917 r. | 922- 952_ _ ___________________ d. | 951 d. | 944 OFE

| sl. | 917 sl. | 952 | ||

?Eoghan [3] Maolmacduagh [5] Comhaltan /\ |=== young wife (?) |==== Bé Bhionn

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh O Cléirigh || |

d. | 967 sl_.|_ 922 r. | 952-976 Å (?) Æ |_____________ son b. | 941 (12 th child)

________________| | dau | b. 942 \ |

[6] Muiredach [7] Giolla Cheallaigh “Flan ” Mor===== Brian

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh _____!____ | \ (m. ? 959) | ==== ? Eachraidh

r. | 976-988 r. | 988-1003 || ||

d. | 988 sl. | 1003 ‘Prince’ | | ||

[8] Cugaela O Cléirigh Maelruanaidh [10] Maelfavaill Murchad Tadg

r. | 1003-1025____ sl. | 1014 ___r. | ?1025/1033-48 sl. | 1014 sl. | 1023 by the Élí

| | dau. b.| 1007-9 | son b. | 1008

[9] Braon Aidhean Mor / [11] Cúgaola \ Toirdelbach

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh | | r. | 1064-86

sl. | 1033 by | |======== ) | (============================| (1) (m. ? 1025-8)

| the Élí | r. | 1048 - ?1056+ Gormlaith ==| (2)

Now, this has to be taken in little by little.
What about Eidhean? Was he real? Cucogry didn’t mention him. His name may have been a political fiction created
later. But to put things in a soft way, I’ve allowed his name to be on the chart as a second name for Maol-fabhaill. It’s not as
good as being a second son, but he’s there. So, in that sense we take him as ‘real’.
Maol-fabhaill, i. Eidhean, then had a son Maol-ciar (genitive ‘Maolcherarda’) who also had a second name, ‘Flann’.
Dubhaltach, say, received only these second names, so he wrote that Flann was the son of Eidhean.
As for the daughter Mor, she is not listed in either Cucogry’s or Dubhaltach’s genealogy. The Book of Ballymote,
dated 1400, mentions her as the mother of three sons of Brian, without naming her, and says she was the daughter of Edend
(Eidhean). I don’t accept that because of the dates involved. She is thought to have been born about 942 and her husband Brian
about 941. Eidhean, in Fahey, is said to have died in 887 [ = 890].
Fahey and others say Mor was the daughter of Flan or Flann. This is acceptable if she was the daughter of Maol-
ciar, i. Flann, who was alive until 952. The chart suggests that he may have had a 4th generation wife, allowing Mor to be born
in the time-frame of the 5th generation. Brian also, as a 12th child of a 4th generation mother, is in the same time-frame.
As for Maelfavail, who Dubhaltach describes as the son of Flann. Even with a young wife this becomes difficult to
fit in because of his late reign and the year of his death in 1048. I accept Maelfavail as ‘real’ since he appears in the locally
recorded history and with dates. He was said to have had a brother, Maolruanaidh na Padre, also mentioned in history as slain
in the Battle of Clontarf. in 1014. Fr. Fahey says these brothers were sons of ‘Flan’ and they are on the chart as sons of
someone named Flan. However, their father Flan is in the 5th generation to account for Maelfavail’s late dates
I still have doubts about this new Flan, however. That’s why I put in the question mark and the arrows. It is alright to
include your doubts on a chart as long as you mark them. Maelfavail’s brother was called a’prince’ of Aidhne, so his father
Flan might have been a son of Maolmacduach or Comhaltan O’Clery or, as Fahey seems to suggest, a brother of Mor, a late-
born son of Maol-ciar, i. Flann. But, for this first try, I’ll leave him as he is, with his fancy hat
However, it should be recognized that it’s not only Flan-with-the-hat who fits in and matches well with Cucogry’s
genealogy in the 5th generation, it’s also his descendants in later generations and their dates who now fit in better.
I’ll add another little thing that’s not on the chart so you don’t have to think about it. Mor’s husband Brian had a
first-cousin named Flann, the son of his uncle Coscrach. The Book of Leinster (LL) says this Flann had no descendants. But if
he did have these two sons, Maelruanaidh and Maelfavail, it would better explain the sons’ support of Brian at Clontarf.

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47

have initiated or at least encouraged the adoption of the surname O hEidhin by the new line of chiefs in Aidhne. What he did

was very ‘feudal-like’ indeed. He created a sort of outside ‘Lordship’ for a man called Giolla na Naomh in Aidhne.

Moody and Byrne in A New History of Ireland list the event under the year 1093: “Ua Briain imprisons Aed Ua

Conchobair at Limerick and gives Síl Muiredaig ( patrinomy of O’Connors and related kindreds in Co. Roscommon ) to Gilla

na Naem Ua hEidin.”

Donncha Ó Corráin has more about it in Ireland Before the Normans, : “In 1092, Muirchertach got his first real

opportunity to pay off his score with Connacht. Early in that year, Ruaidri Ua Conchobair, king of Connacht, was blinded by

his rival, Ua Flaithbertaig, who now made a bid for the kingship of the province. Muirchertach marched into Connacht and

took its hostages. Ua hEidin, a south Connacht dynast, whose family had long been friendly with Muirchertach’s family, was

allowed to seize the kingship of Connacht.”

“Síl Muiredaig, the dynasty to which Ua Conchobair belonged, resisted this change. Muirchertach was back the

following year. He expelled Síl Muiredaig into Cenél Eógain, captured their kings, settled their lands on Ua hEidin who, of

course, had no claim to them in Irish law, and he then appointed Ua hEidin as king of Connacht.” (p. 144)

This is an outrageous event when looked at not from the dynastic point of view but from the view within the tuath –

any tuath. That ‘patrinomy of O’Connors’ was the home-tuath of the Síl Muiredaig (Silmurray) – even though the family

leaders had become swordlanders. This is against old old Irish law and custom. It’s putting a ‘stranger in sovereignty’. The

Silmurray would be enraged. And for someone in Aidhne to be chosen as the instrument for this, how does that come back to

affect Aidhne? It establishes a precedent for the loss of Aidhne’s independence and sovereignty as a tuath.

This, I believe, goes against everything the former tuath kings, the O’Clerys, wanted for Aidhne. Is it any wonder

that the full name given to this Giolla na Naomh in history is Giolla na Naomh na Foghla (of the Trespass), that is, Giolla na

Naomh, the Trespasser. I’d say it was one of the O’Clerys that gave him that handle.

Now, here’s the awful awful thing that I’m not sure about: Suppose this Giolla na Naomh was an O’Clery, not an

O’Heyne, as the later books say. This is the lightning bolt that would have caused a cleft in the O’Clerys, such as the one

drawn out for us in the genealogy left by Cucogry O’Clery. I’ll talk about the effect it would have had on the O’Clerys later,

but first I’ll tell you how it affected my chart

This was what caused me – in the full version of the chart I am going to show you on the next page – to make a shift

of a Giolla na Naomh on the O hEidhin line, where Dubhaltach put him, across to the O’Clery line. Actually, there is a Giolla

na Naomh already on the O’Clery line in that generation, so I’m not adding a name to Cucogry, I’m just taking a name away

from Dubhaltach. It’s a drastic and dramatic thing to do and it will certainly raise some eyebrows, but after all the yards

of history we’ve been through here, I imagine you don’t want to see a

noncontroversial chart in the end. If I’ve gone too far, I’ll be corrected, (29) Who was Giolla na Naomh na Foghla?

and we’ll all learn from that. (The A and B, not C of it)

It doesn’t affect the new time-framing on the chart, if I do it

or if I don’t. It’s not necessary to do. On chart (29), I show three choices, Uí Cléirigh Flan’s branch

A, B, and C. If I left the chart as in A, and simply took the ‘na Foghla’, A. Cúgaela Maelfavail 6

‘the Trespasser’ handle, over to the O’Clery side, it would do almost as Aidhean Cugaola 7

well. But I have some evidence, which I’ll give after the big chart, that Giolla na Naomh Giolla na Naomh 8

it may have been a genealogy copying mistake that gave Cugaola a son Flann Aodh 9

Giolla na Naomh in the first place.

To correct that possible mistake I chose B, where a genealogy B. Cúgaela Maelfavail [OHT] 6

taken from O’Hart’s Irish Pedigrees (IV-67) accounts for Aodh and the Aidhean Cugaola 7

son that comes after him. I don’t know where O’Hart got the line that Giolla na Naomh Giollabeartach 8

lists Giollabeartach instead of Giolla na Naomh. It’s a risky choice, Flann Aodh 9

but if it’s wrong I can always go back to choice A.

Choice C would also work on a chart, but it breaks away from C. Cúgaela Maelfavail 6

Cucogry’s genealogy, which I don’t want to do. Cucogry has Aidhean dau. Aidhne ======= Cugaola 7

as a son. Choice C makes the son a daughter, Aidhne, who later marries |

Cugaola of Flan’s branch. Together they are the parents of the Trespasser. Giolla na Naomh 8

The advantage of C is that it would make it easier to explain how it came ______|________

about in history that there was only one O’Heyne family. Flann Aodh 9

I came at this from the point of view of the second Mor who

married Toirdelbach being an O’Clery daughter. Then later, when I read about Muircheartach O’Brien bestowing what he

imagined was an honor on a ‘Giolla na Naomh’, I thought immediately of the Giolla na Naomh who was the nephew of Mor,

who after all was the first wife of Muircheartach’s father Toirdelbach. Why wouldn’t Muircheartach chose his own relation for

the honor? You can see from O’Corráin’s passage quoted above that he too thinks friendly family relations were part of it.

Family relations would still be in effect if Mor was the daughter of Maelfavail. But then Mor would be the sister of

Cugaola who killed Donald Ruadh, likely her son, and likely Muircheartach’s older half brother. Why would Murcheartach

honor Cugaola’s son? The family relations wouldn’t be ‘friendly’.

In addition, these friendly relations with Muircheartach bring about the trespass against another tuath. This could

explain a break in O’Clery family relations and the forming of a branch with a new surname.

It’s this line of thinking that I explore on the lower portion of this new trial chart. I’ve held it back long enough. I’ll

show you the full chart now and talk more about it later.

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48

(30) Cucogry O’Clery’s Genealogy in the O’Heyne and O’Brien Setting, (a new trial chart )

Cléireach Lachtan Maonach 1

fl | 850 ||

[1] Maolfhabhaill, i. Eidhean Lorcan Murchad 2

____________________________| ?d. | 923-9 d. | 896 K

|| d. | 890 ||

?Eochagán [2] Tighernach [4] Maolcherarda, i. Flann Cennétic Earca 3

Ó Cléirigh (1st) Ó Cléirigh O Cléirigh ||

d. | 950 r . | 890-917 r. | 922- 952_ _ ___________________ d. | 951 d. | 944 OFE

| sl. | 917 AU sl. | 952 | ||

?Eoghan [3] Maolmacduagh [5] Comhaltan O Cléirigh /\ |=== young wife (?) |==== Bé Bhionn 4

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh | || |

d. | 967 sl. _|_921-2 r. | 952-976 Å (?)Æ |____________ son b. | 941 (12 th child)

________________ | | dau | \ |

[6] Muiredach [7] Giolla Cheallaigh “Flan ” Mor ===== Brian 5

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh _____|____ | \ (m. ? 959) | ==== ? Eachraidh

r. | 976-988 r. | 988-1003 || ||

d. | 988 sl. | 1003 ‘Prince’ | | ||

[8] Cúgaela O Cléirigh Maelruanaidh [10] Maelfavaill Murchad Tadg 6

r. | 1003-1025____ sl. | 1014___r. | ?1025/1033-48 sl.| !014 sl. | 1023 by the Élí

| | dau. b. | 1007-9 | son b. | 1008

[9] Braon Aidhean \ Mor [11] Cúgaola \ Toirdelbach 7

Ó Cléirigh Ó Cléirigh || | r. | 1064-85

sl. | 1033 by | ========) | (=============================| (1)

| the Élí | ____ _r. | 1048-1056+ ? (?) | (2) | ==Gormlaith

Eoghan [12] Giolla na Naomh Giolla Flaith- Domhnall ______| Fógartaigh 8

Ó Cléirigh na Foghla beartach \ bheartach Ruadh | (3) |== Dervorgal

| r. | ? 1093 -1100 | [ OHT -187] |[MF] sl._|_ 1056 __ | | nic Giolla Phadraig

d. | 1063 | |/ | || |

Domhnall Flann [13] Aodh Cú Gaola (+3) Donnchad Diarmaid Muircheartach 9

Ó Cléirigh ua Aidhin ? (1st) O hEidhin [< meic sl. | 1103 | (1st) O Briain

| [gr.son of Aidhin ] r. | 1100-21 Conghaola] | r. ! 1086-1114

|| sl. | 1121_________ d. | 1118 _|_d. 1119

Giolla na Naomh Conchobar [14] Giolla Ceallaigh Giolla Toirdelbach 10

O Cléirigh ? O hEidhin O hEidhin na Naomh O Briain

_[OHT]_____) | (_________) | (_____(?)_____? r. |_1121-53__[MF]_________ |

||| sl. | 1153 | d. | 1167

‘Moroch’ [? or Tighernach Aodh ?[15] Giolla na N.aomh Aodh Domhnall Mor 11

Muirghis O hE. O Cléirigh ? O hEidhin O hEidhin Maol na mBó O Briain Franks

sl. |_1180 ?] | | |___________ sl. | 1153 d. | 1194 \

Giolla- Con- Muiredach Giolla Ceallaigh ?[16] Cugaela Conchobar Aodh Una ======== William 12

padraig chobar Ó Cléirigh O hEidhin Ó hEidhin Ó hEidhin O hEidhin de Burgo

| O hEidhin | | d. | 1212 d. | 1211 |

| d. | 1201 | | | d. | 1205-6

Gillruaidh Tadhg Giolla na Naomh ?[17] Donnchadh Richard 13

(‘Gilroy/ Ó Cléirigh O hEidhin O hEidhin de Burgo

Kilroy’) | | blinded | 1212 \ b. | 1194

| || d. | 1224 \ |

| | d. | 1225 Å (?)Æ [ blinded by Aodh O Conchobar] d. | 1243

‘Morogh’ Giolla Íosa ?[18] Eoghan Maelfabhaill Avelina === Walter 14

| Ó Cléirigh / O hEidhin O hEidhin FitzGeoffrey de Burgo

| | [? last king | 1235 ] | b. | 1229

| | r. | 1225-52 | _________________________________ |

| | d. | 1252-3 sl . | 1263 b. | 1259 b. | c. 1263 b. | c. 1265 d. | 1271

Florence Domhnall ?[19] Seaán Richard Hubert (John) Redmond 15

MacGillakelly Ó Cléirigh O hEidhin de Burgo de Burgo de Burgo

(? expelled) expelled | c 1267 r. | ? 1253 ‘Red Earl’ / | |\

|| r. | 1280 [occupied O’Clery lands]

Seaán Sgiamhach ?[20] Aodh d.| 1326 16

Ó Cléirigh O hEidhin

||

Diarmaid ?[21] Donnchadh 17

O Cléirigh O hEidhin

(of Tirawley) sl. | 1340 by ‘own kinsmen’ FY-171 9 [ ? first kin-slaying, the end of the integrity of Aidhne ]

| |___________________ /

Cormac ?[22] Muircheartach Eogan / 18

O Cléirigh Ó hEidhin O hEidhin

to Tir Conaill | c. 1380 | sl. | 1340 by ‘kinsmen’ OHT = O’Hart, MF = MacFh. ® June 2009

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Before I go on, I’d like to mention another discovery I made by accident – unless I’m getting help I don’t see. It may be

evidence for how a mistake could have been

made in giving Cugaela a son named Giolla na (31) A Missing ‘Aidhin’ in Cucogry’s Genealogies

Naomh in the first place. As usual, I’ve made (Was it a slip of a daughter?)

a chart as a kind of ‘show and tell’ for it.

Just the other day, after I finished the # 1577 # 1558 # 1595

chart (30) above, I went to get my copy of The Uí Chléirigh Uí Aidhin meic Giolla cheallaigh

O Clery Book of Genealogies by Pender to look

up the genealogy of the meic Giolla Ceallaigh to Giolla ceallaigh d. 1003 Giolla ceallaigh Giolla cheallaigh

see how it differed from the one in O’Hart that (ó raiter an slondadh)

I had put on the chart. I wasn’t out to make some Cú gaela d. 1025 Cú gaela d. 1025 Cú gaela

kind of a discovery.

When I found the genealogy, I noticed Braon d. 1033 Aidhin

some pencilled words I had written in it. Cucogry (ó ttá an slondadh)

had left out the name ‘Aidhin’ in this genealogy. Eoghan Giolla na naomh Giolla na naomh

The table or chart (31) shows portions of three of

Cucogry’s genealogies to make this plain. You can Domhnall Flann Flann

see the O’Clery, the O’hAidhin or O’Heyne, and

the MacGillakelly lines there, side by side. In the Giolla na naomh Concobair Conchobhair

MacGillakelly line, Cucogry says, in effect, that

Giolla na Naomh was the son of Cú gaela. Tighernach Aodh Aodh

I had pencilled in that it was a mistake,

and it might have been just that. Then I thought Muireadach Giolla ceallaigh Giolla cheallaigh

of two other things:

1. If someone looked at this genealogy, Tadhg Giolla na naomh Giolla na naomh

# 1595, they could come away believing that Cú gaela

was Giolla na Naomh’s father. They wouldn’t necessarily check the genealogy # 1558 to see how the five following names are

the same in both genealogies, showing that it was a mistake and that a name had been left out. Someone like MacFhirbhisigh,

or a scribe he was copying from, may have reached the false conclusion and that might explain the genealogies that show Cú

gaela as the father of Giolla na Naomh na Foghla.

That’s a sensible enough observation, but then my mind wandered back to this daughter thing and I went a bit over

the edge. I said to myself:

2. Could this, in some way, support the idea that Aidhean was ‘Aidhne’, a daughter, and later on, mother of Giolla

na Naomh? I suppose not. Unless, perhaps, Cucogry intentionally skipped a generation over a daughter from the father, Cú

gaela, to the next available son, Giolla na Naomh, a grandson, when he was doing the meic Giolla cheallaigh line – a thing he

refrained from doing in the case of the Uí Aidhin line only because the family designation itself contained the name ‘Aidhin’.

It would all be very unusual and unlikely.

Yet, this question got into my head. Did Cucogry make a mistake in # 1595 in leaving Aidhean out, or did he allow a

mistake to be written in # 1558 listing Aidhne, a daughter, as Aidhean, a son?

There’s a passage in Fr. Fahey’s book in which he is quoting a passage from the historian O’Donovan whose book I

don’t have. The O’Donovan passage seems to confirm both of those two thoughts I expressed above. I’ll cite Fahey’s text as

‘evidence’ here and also because it helps us move down the chart as well:

“We find no notice of any recognized chief of Aidhne during the closing half of the eleventh century [that is, 1050 to

1100], notwithstanding the important events which mark its history. The succession from Cugeola, the last Lord of Aidhne … is

given as follows by O’Donovan [ Customs of Hy Fiachrach, p. 308] : --

“Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne was son of Cugeola / Flann was son of Giolla na Naomh;

Connor was son of Flann / Hugh O’Heyne was son of Connor.”

“There can be little doubt that this Hugh O’Heyne was the recognized chief of Aidhne, and the same Lord of Aidhne who in

1121 aided O’Connor in effecting a disastrous invasion of Munster.” (p. 134) [I have a different ‘Hugh’, or Aodh, for this]

Look at O’Donovan’s list of four there and then look at Cucogry’s list # 1595. The four names are the same and in

the same order. Then look over at Cucogry’s # 1558, and there you have the missing ‘Aidhin’. I’ll say what you must be

thinking now: The only way O’Donovan can be correct is for Cugeola to be the father of Giolla na Naomh and for ‘Aidhin’ to

be the mother of Giolla na Naomh.

I’ll add this too: The Giolla na Naomh, son of Cú Gaola, in Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh’s genealogy of O hEidhin

does not have a son Flann, whereas the ‘Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne’ that O’Donovan lists does have a son Flann.

If you look at what O’Donovan wrote and at Cucogry’s lists above it has to be plain that there is only one Giolla na

Naomh here and his next three descendants in line (actually five) are also descendants of Aidhin. Even though O’Donovan

doesn’t mention Aidhin, those three same descendants in a row show that Aidhin has to be there.

Though O’Donovan uses the term “O’Heyne”, the succession he gives comes straight from the O’Clery genealogies

of Cucogry, not from the O’Heyne genealogies of Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh. When he writes “Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne

was a son of Cugeola” that Cugeola is actually Cúgaela Ó Cléirigh. The Cugeola of Dubhaltach has to be a different man if

he’s historical at all. This is a matter for the historian and I added it in case one is reading here.

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50

---------- ----------- --------------

I’m happy now I wrote about the horizontals and verticals of the charts I make and the slant on history I put in which

I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to do otherwise. I’ll leave off making any more charts here. I’ll continue with some history

in Aidhne during the time covered by chart (30) and that’s how I’ll bring this writing to an end.

--------- --------- -------------

36. A Likely Period for the Declaration of the O hEidhin Surname, 1092-1102:

We know the first solidly ‘dated’ person who is named as an O’Heyne. He is Maolruanaidh na Padre,

who fought and died at the battle of Clontarf in 1014, more than 50 years after Mor’s marriage. (Some recent

books call him only ‘a prince of Aidhne’ but others give him the surname ‘O’Heyne’.)

We have to go even after 1014, to date the book where Maolruanaidh’s death at Clontarf is first

mentioned. I believe it is the literary work called Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh , The War of the Gaedhil with the

Gaill. The earliest copy we have of this is dated 1152, or so, like the Book of Leinster, among the pages of which

it was found. Some say the original ‘Cogadh’ may have been up to a hundred years earlier, that is, at the earliest,

written around 1052. But it could be less old, say, written after 1085, that is, during the reign of Muircheartach

Mór Ó Briain from 1086 to 1114. With that alone, I suppose, I could rest my chronological case.

However, I have feelings about it that go further. I really suspect ‘the tale’ that some historians seem to

be tacking on to what we know from the annals of the Four Masters, namely, that Tighernach Ó Cléirigh [d. 916,

rightly sl. 919] was the first listing of the modern-type surname. From that entry, we accept that a decision was

made in the third generation after Cléireach by his grandchildren to adopt Ó Cléirigh as a ‘surname’. Later, we

hear this tale that begins almost at the same time. In that generation or the next, another descendant says, ‘No,

some of us will take Ó hEidhin as a ‘surname’ That is so unlikely. Why would it happen? I can’t understand it.

It must have happened some generations later. At first, I thought it may have happened around the time

of Mor’s marriage to Brian of the Dál gCais – around 958 to 960. This was a big thing. Not only was Brian a

young man apparently ‘with a future’, he was of the Dál gCais.. They had their admirers within the tuath.

I think this marriage may have caused disagreement within the O’Clerys – even a ‘family split’ But I

don’t think it resulted in a new ‘surname’. At most, it probably caused Mor’s supporters to drop the O’Clery

surname, if they had even adopted it in the first place. Some descendants may have called themselves O’Clerys

and some not. There was no machinery of enforcement here. A family split yes, I can see that, but not the surname

O’Heyne, not yet. If it happened then, Cucogry’s genealogy would likely have been different.

No, the circumstances were not right in the 960s. What about around 1014, when the Dál gCais wanted

Aidhne to be represented behind Brian as a tuath kingdom from Connacht? The slain Maelruanaidh na Padre

would be called a ‘prince’ of Aidhne. Some would call him ‘Ua hEidhin’ Yes, but we have no written record of

this before the copy of Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh bound up within the Book of Leinster, dated 1152, as I said

above. And, the original ‘Cogadh’ might have been composed around 1086 or so.

The circumstances seem to be right between, say, 1092 and 1103, which are years within the reign of

Muircheartach Mór Ua Briain. (See the chart) Think of what Byrne wrote above about this period generally:

‘these years witnessed the emergence of a native feudal society’ and ‘the men of learning both secular and

monastic’ developed the doctrine of the ‘high-kingship’. Muircheartach was a creature of this time, interested in

re-interpreting history, involved in Norse and Norman affairs in Wales, one of his daughters married there, and he

acted the part of a ‘feudal king’. He was the kind of man to try setting up a new style in Aidhne.

Knox, in his history of Mayo, tells us that Muircheartach was encamped about three months on the plain

of Aidhne in 1093, and that he had a ‘headquarters’ in Aidhne (p. 43). O’Corráin mentions a similar ‘military’

encampment in 1095 (p. 145). He may have spent a lot of time in Aidhne. He had members of Mor’s family

there. If I am right about her identity, his family would have been her brother Aidhean’s son, Giolla na Naomh,

his son Flann, and her brother Braon’s grandson Domhnall O’Cléirigh. He would have had ample time to have

meetings and extended conversations with Giolla na Naomh concerning the situation in Aidhne.

We can get some idea of that situation: After the king Braon O’Clery was killed in 1033 by the same

people who had killed Muircheartach’s grandfather, supporters of the late Donnchad, Maelfavail took his place as

tuath king. When Maelfavail died, his son Cugeola took his place. They were of the earlier Mor’s branch in the

kindred who supported Brian’s family and then his son Donnchad, perhaps until his death in 1064.

We speculate a little now: In 1056, as a supporter of Donnchad, Cugeola took part in a battle against

Muircheartach’s father Toirdelbach and his supporters outside Aidhne. In connection with that, an unfortunate

thing happened. Cugeola slew in battle, the elder half-brother of Muircheartach himself, that is, Domhnall Ruadh.

Afterwards, Cugeola grieved much over this. The heart went out of his kingship in Aidhne. Since that time in

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1056, there hasn’t been kingship in the tuath. (Remember what Fr. Fahey said about not finding notice of any
recognized chief of Aidhne during the second half of that century).

Now let the imagination run free: In the summer of ’93, ‘from midsummer to St.Michael’s day’, as Knox
says, Muircheartach is encamped on the plain of Aidhne, so let’s picture him as having a long talk with his
family relation Giolla na Naomh about things. Muircheartach speaks, “It’s time for a new day in Aidhne. The
days of your uncle Braon and the kingship of the O’Clerys are gone now for sixty years. For nearly forty years,
there’s been no heart, as you say, in the kingship of the branch of the bride of Brian. Aidhne needs a new
kingship under a new name.”

Under the influence of the ‘native feudal society’ that Byrne mentioned, I believe a new notion of
‘surname’ took hold for a short while, especially among the dynast families. The Irish for surname is ‘sloinne’
which comes from ‘slond’ or ‘slonn’, the act of ‘expressing’ or ‘declaring’. The earliest surnames, like Ó Cléirigh,
Ó Dubhda, and Ó Ceallaigh, came out of the tuath setting. They were declarations of independence perhaps, or
self-reliance. In the feudal atmosphere later, some dynasts who took surnames were declaring themselves to be
‘lords’, and the surname, for them, became a ‘title’ for their eminence.

I’d say Muircheartach would be of this cast of mind. A new surname for the leading family in Aidhne
would be, in his thinking, a ‘lordship title’ for a sort of ‘barony’ in a new feudal-style Ireland. He would have
Aidhne on his mind, not just Giolla na Naomh – more than Aidhne, he was thinking of Connacht. In 1093 he
either “gives”, as Moody and Byrne say, or “allows” him to seize, as Ó Corráin says, the ‘patrinomy’ of Síl
Muiredaig, the center from where the O’Connors exercise their power in the western province and beyond.

Before taking this action, Muircheartach would have pressed Giolla na Naomh on the matter of adopting
a new surname. He’d tell him it would bring with it entitlement not only for a line of tuath kingship, but the
promise of ‘seizing’ the kingship of Connacht, which the Silmurray had for so long thought was solely their
entitlement. Giolla na Naomh would be overwhelmed by the talk of the great Muircheartach – and he was a great
man, no doubt – like his great grandfather Brian.

Giolla na Naomh might have meekly objected, “I can be an Ó Cléirigh. My grandfather was Cú Gaela Ó
Cléirigh. The Uí Cléirigh can rise again”. “No,” the great man would have said, “that time of small independence
is gone. Aidhne has to be part of the new order of interconnected alliances under a high kingship. We all know
what your family stood for. My advice would be for you to select a name in your line before Tighernach Ó
Cléirigh. What was his father’s name?”

“He was Maolfabhall, but his name as a youth was Eidhean,” says Giolla na Naomh.
“There it is,” says the great one, “You are all descended from him as well – both the Uí Cléirigh and
Craobh Bhrídeach Bhriain [the Branch of the Bride of Brian]. Under this surname Ó hEidhin for the leadership,
the kindred can be united again in dealing with outside affairs. It happens that we have poets and scholars now
busily setting down our history for the enlightenment of Christendom. I will instruct them in matters. The lords of
Aidhne will be known to history as the Uí Eidhin”
You know of course that was just an imaginary conversation, like in the movies. And it doesn’t even
account for who or what was the source for saying Eidhean was ‘the second son’ of Cléireach. The closest history
comes to giving evidence here has to do with time. It gives an approximate date for the earliest mention of an Ó
hEidhin, the Cogadh Gaedhel re Gaillibh, which Ó Corráin feels was written “some two-and-a-half centuries
after the events it purports to narrate”, that is, after events in the career of Turgesius from 832-845. (p. 91). So, Ó
Corráin thinks it was written from 1082-1095.
The time-framing of Cucogry O’Clery’s genealogy would coincide with that same period. It would have
been the generation of Flann ua hAidhin, with whom Cucogry says the surname began.
The best that the dating of texts by historians and the timing of genealogies like Cucogry O’Clery’s can
do is to tell us when, or about when, it might have happened. So, we have at least some evidence suggesting that
the creation and adoption of the surname Ó hEidhin possibly took place during the years that Muircheartach Mór
happened to be reigning. Some imprecise time-frame evidence – that’s about all you can say.
However, if we can come to a tentative agreement concerning this ‘when’, as limited as that seems, it
immediately brings us to some serious questions about the distortion of history. If the surname Ó hEidhin was
adopted after, say, the 1080s, then we have to recognize that writers – poets and scribes in monasteries early on --
projected this O’Heyne declaration backwards in time in their efforts to provide propaganda literature asserting
that there was chieftain-level support from Connacht’s Aidhne behind Brian Boru at Clontarf in 1014.
And we would have to recognize that antiquarians and historians, for centuries later, out of their patriotic
regard for the almost legendary importance of Brian Boru, continued this ‘propaganda’, mostly likely believing it
to be true, that the O’Heynes were already in place as chieftains or kings in Aidhne by the time 1014 and Clontarf
came along. Maolruanaidh na Padre probably died nobly at Clontarf, but I say he wasn’t an Ó hEidhin, as the

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Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh has him. And Murchadh, Brian and Mor’s son, was evidently a courageous warrior,
but he wasn’t the “grandson of Flan O’Heyne”, as Fr. Fahey said.

I don’t begrudge the praises that can be given to Brian Boru, to Mor’s relations in Aidhne, or to the later
O’Heyne chieftains for praiseworthy things they may have done in history. But if this all entails the virtual erasing
out of 143 years of praiseworthy effort on the part of the O’Clerys to defend and maintain the tuath of Aidhne –
well, that’s simply not right. But one thing I have to say about Fr. Fahey, he did not shy away from including a lot
of material about the kingship of the O’Clerys in his book. Though he wrote much in praise of the O’Heynes and
O’Shaughnessys, he saw no reason not to write as much as he could about the O’Clerys as well.

37. The O’Heyne chieftainship in Aidhne in the 1100s and into the 1200s
After they lost the chieftainship, the O’Clerys remained in Aidhne as one of the organized kindred of the

tuath for another 233 years, counting from the end of 1033 into the year 1267. That happens to be the same
number of years the United States of America has existed, from 1776 to this year of 2009. During that long time
they never contested the chieftainship. I have come across no mention of a battle between the O’Heynes and the
O’Clerys. Fahey remarks that “the O’Clerys retained a high position amongst their clansmen until the close of the
thirteenth century [1200s] when they were driven out of their possessions by the De Burgos.” (p.118).

Just another little mention about years that may be easy to fix in the memory. If we are right about the
timing of the surnames here, there would be about 60 years between the end of kingship under the O’Clery
surname in 1033 and the beginning in 1093 of kingship under the O’Heyne surname. That doesn’t preclude a
kingship without a surname between 1033 and 1093 for Maelfavail and his son Cugeola. For most of Aidhne’s
long previous history tuath kings did not have surnames. It wasn’t required or even thought of.

As for Giolla na Naomh na Foghla, the ‘Trespasser’, and his kingship over the Silmurray or of
Connacht, I looked in four books where I thought there might be mention of it, but found nothing about it.

(1) Hynes refers to a tuath kingship when he says. “After him [i.e. after ‘Cugaela (O’Heyne) ] came
Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne (surnamed ‘of the plunder’ ) who died in 1100 and was buried in Clonmacnoise.”
(p. 47). (2) Fahey also, when talking about the succession in Aidhne, quotes O’Donovan describing Giolla na
Naomh simply as ‘son of Cugeola’ (p. 134). (3) Knox lists Tadhg [O’Connor] as king of Connacht from 1093 to
1097 (p. 387). (4) Charles O’Connor, in his book The O’Connors of Connaught, Dublin, 1891, after telling us
about the blinding of king Roderick by O’Flaherty in 1092, writes: “After his abdication the sovereignty of
Connaught remained for several years in dispute. O’Flaherty first assumed it [for a month]; Teige O’Conor, son
of Roderick, then held it for a short time, or, at least was recognized as the head of the Silmurray. He was killed in
1097.” (p. 35)

So, with four writers about Connacht, there doesn’t seem to be any recognition of the Trespasser Giolla
na Naomh ‘Ua hEidin’ as king of Silmurray or of Connacht in 1092 or 1093. Even Ó Corráin, who along with
Moody and Byrne gave us this information, on his very next page, says of Muirchertach O’Brien that “in January
1095” he “took the hostages of Síl Muiredaig and of Ua Ruairc” and “finally, he appointed Ua Ruairc king of
Connacht, but he excluded Uí Fiachrach [Aidhne], Uí Maine, and Luigne from his authority.” (p.145). Knox does
recognize an O’Rourk, ‘Domhnall’ as king of Connaught from 1098-1102. (p. 387).

It looks like Giolla na Naomh gained little or nothing. In fact he may have lost the respect of Aidhne and
the head of his own family, who was probably Domhnall O’Clery at that time. This incident of the ‘trespass’
could have brought about a parting of the ways among the O’Clerys. Maybe not suddenly, but gradually. Perhaps,
Giolla na Naomh left home and went to Clonmacnoise to reside there before he died in 1100. Giolla na Naomh’s
son, Flann ua Aidhin, remained in Aidhne but I don’t think there is any evidence that he became chief or king.
His generations would continue and there would be a future role for them among the O’Heynes.

There was another even more dramatic parting of the ways in Aidhne that may have been brought about
by that ill-starred attempt of the great Muircheartach Ua Briain to appoint a man of Aidhne as a stranger in
sovereignty over the tuath of the Silmurray. The next chief in Aidhne was from the branch that had long been
partisans of the family of Brian but it seems they had a complete change of mind. They turned into partisans of
the O’Connors. If Muirchertach O’Brien had anything to do with the selection of the O’Heyne surname, they kept
that much from him, but they were no longer ‘lords’ under the O’Briens.

You can see this chief on the chart. He is Aodh O hEidhin. I have him marked as the first O’Heyne. I’m
not sure about it, but he’s in the right generation. I differ from Fahey who makes this Aodh (or Hugh) the son of
“Connor, son of Flann” on O’Donovan’s list. That Aodh, son of Conchobair, would have been too late in time to
be a chieftain in or shortly after 1100. I also differ from Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh by making him the son of
Giollabeartach (on the O’Hart list) rather than son of Giolla na Naomh na Foghla who I think has to be a relation
of the second Mor.

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Here’s what Fahey says about this chief: “There can be little doubt that this Hugh O’Heyne was the
recognized chief of Aidhne, and the same Lord of Aidhne who in 1121 aided O’Connor in effecting a disastrous
invasion of Munster… In this incursion O’Connor was supported by O’Flaherty of West Connacht and by Hugh
O’Heyne, Lord of Hy Fiachrach Aidhne, both of whom were slain.” (p. 134).

Aodh’s son Giolla Ceallaigh O’Heyne and grandson Aodh (Hugh) are both slain in 1153 in another
battle on behalf of the O’Connors. Fahey writes: “Hugh, Lord of Aidhne, seems to have been succeeded by his
son, Gillikelly O’Heyne, who was slain with his son Hugh in 1153.” (pp. 134-135)

Dubhaltach’s genealogy (258.5) gives this Giolla Ceallaigh three sons: Giolla na Naomh, Aodh ‘Maol na
mBó’, and Cú Gaola. [Aodh ‘Maol na mBó’ is obviously the Hugh slain in 1153.] In (258.6), Dubhaltach says:
“Maol na mBó had one son Aodh”. The son Aodh ends that line. J. P. Hynes, referring to Giolla na Naomh, says
he “continued the line”(p.47), which supports the idea that Maol na mBó’s line ended with his son.

Fahey refers to a contrary view in O’Donovan: “O’Donovan has no doubt that he [a later Donnchadh
O’Heyne] was a grandson of Aodh (Hugh) O’Heyne,… slain in A.D. 1153. He seems also to imply that Connor
O’Heyne, whose death is recorded by the annalists, A.D.1211, and Cugeola O’Heyne, who died A.D. 1212, were
his [Donnchadh’s] brothers”(p.147). They are saying that Aodh (Hugh)’s line doesn’t end with a son.

On chart (30), I follow Dubhaltach and Hynes’ lead. Instead of making Cugaela (d. 1212) and Connor
(d. 1211) grandsons of Aodh (Hugh) (d. 1153), I make them sons of his brother Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne.
Donnchadh then can become the son of Cugaela O’Heyne (d. 1212). This lets Donnchadh O’ Heyne become
chief or king in 1212 after his father’s death and explains why he was blinded that year.

You can see where Fahey and/or O’Donovan were at. They were at an end of a line in Dubhaltach and
were trying to fit in some additional names supplied by the local history. They put the local names, which are not
in Dubhaltach, as descendants of Aodh (Hugh), not Giolla na Naomh, probably because they thought they had to
free up Giolla na Naomh to be the father of Eogan O’Heyne. They needn’t have worried because Eogan was not
the son of that particular Giolla na Naomh. He came along later in time.

Dubhaltach’s text is ultimately at fault. Though he has a section break between (258.7) and (259.1), he
makes it look like Giolla Ceallaigh (sl. 1153) is the father of the Giolla na Naomh who was Eogan’s father.

However that may be, Fahey tells us more about the local history: “Donnchadh O’Heyne had his eyes put
out by Aodh (Hugh), the son of Cathal Crovedearg O’Connor, without the permission of O’Connor himself.”
(p. 147) Whether that rash and cruel son had it in mind or not, I think this somehow had the effect of bringing
about an end to chieftaincy in this line. He was probably blinded because he had just become a chief in 1212.
Blinded, he wouldn’t be acceptable as or even able to be a chief. He didn’t die until 1224. Perhaps, out of respect,
no other chief was put in his place.

In 1225, the new chief in Aidhne was Eoghan O’Heyne, son of a Giolla na Naomh, in the line of
Aidhean and the Trespasser. Eoghan’s father, Giolla na Naomh may have served as chief from 1212, after the
blinding, until 1225. The fact may be that there was just no one else left in the male lines in Donnchadh’s family
and he himself, for whatever reason, did not have sons. Or, there may have been a very young son – the
Maelfabhaill on the chart for instance – who on reaching his maturity chose not or was not chosen to be chief.

Unless we think Cucogry O’Clery was not showing us the origins of the branching away from the Uí
Cléirigh line at Aidhean, we have to assume that this branch had adopted the surname Ó hAidhin a few
generations later. The similarity in the sounds of the surnames and the fact that the spelling O hEidhin was more
associated with the chieftainship may have led the Aidhean branch to use O hEidhin as well. For that reason this
change of line in 1212 or 1225 would not have been noticed by historians writing centuries later.

So, this is the way chart (30) finally brings about that single O’Heyne family that everyone, Cucogry,
Dubhaltach, and all the historians, took to be the one and only O’Heyne family of Aidhne.

The chieftainship of the branch of ‘Flan’, brother of the first Mor, ended as a result of the blinding of
Donnchadh O’Heyne in 1212. The branch of Aidhean, brother of the second Mor, provided a continuation of the
chieftainship by 1225 in the person of Eoghan O’Heyne, a descendant also of Giolla na Naomh na Foghla.

I hope that what will be seen as the most important thing about the chart is that the generation time-
frames have been adjusted. With that done correctly a lot of other things can be discovered, or discarded.

Chart (30) is presented only as one way that the genealogies of Cugogry and Dubhaltach can be
reconciled, at least in regard to time. The inclusion of the Brian family and De Burgo line supports the timing of
Cucogry’s genealogy. It has not been altered. Also, the last seven corresponding names from Dubhaltach’s
genealogy are still intact – with only Seaan inserted – and now they match Cucogry’s ‘time’.

Dubhaltach loses some ‘duplicates’ [chart (26)] and he loses the Trepasser [chart (29)]. But chart (30)
tries to hold on to other O’Heynes that appear only in his genealogy or in local history. I’m not sure I should have
added the O’Hart line with Giollabeartach, but it lets the MacGillakellys back in nicely.

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38. Nearing the end of the O’Clery and O’Heyne Days Together in Aidhne.
It’s in the 12th generation from Cléireach that the Normans first set foot in Connacht. Fahey puts it this

way: “the English adventurers appeared for the first time in Connaught – A.D. 1177” He also mentions that
“MacCarthy and O’Brien [in Munster] at once tendered their submission, if not their allegiance, to the invaders”.
About 1192, a year or two before Domhnall Mór O’Brien was to die, his daughter Una was married to William
de Burgo. (Fahey like many others calls this William ‘William Fitz Adelm de Burgo’, which is a mistake) Both
De Burgos and O’Briens would soon make use of this marriage-based alliance whenever it suited them in their
‘adventures’ in Connacht or in Aidhne. The poor daughters.

Fahey describes the situation in the 1190s, the closing years of the reign of Ruaidhri Ua Conchobhair,
often said to be the last king of Ireland. “In 1191, he was obliged to fly from his faithless family, and accept the
protection of the faithful chieftains of Aidhne, with whom he once resided. … In 1198 the remains of the last
monarch of Ireland were laid in the grave beneath the shadow of the towers of Clonmacnoise. But the solemn
echoes of the last requiem chanted over his grave had hardly died away over the waters of the Shannon when his
degenerate sons and relations once more engaged in a deadly struggle for the crown.”

“This time the influential claimants were Cathal Carragh … and Cathal Crovedearg, better known,
perhaps, by the English rendering of his name as ‘Cathal the Red-handed’, his granduncle. [both O’Connors]
Each had his supporters as well in Aidhne as through the whole province. But the rivals sought support also
among the Norman adventurers, who witnessed this unnatural struggle with intense gratification. Hence, we find
those designing allies fomenting the discord by becoming the allies, now of one party, then of the other. To them it
mattered little which side might prove victorious, their aim being to divide and weaken” (p.144 )

His description of the last king finding a kind of comfort of faithfulness as well as physical safety in
Aidhne makes me think there may have been a lingering atmosphere of the old kinship-based society remaining in
the tuath. Of course, Father Fahey, writing in 1893, was expressing sensibilities of his own time. The same can be
said about his mention of the ‘unnatural struggle’ between granduncle and grandnephew. He was thinking of
family structure in his own day. As for me, I thought about the old tuath law against kin-slaying

I mark his words about the Normans too, where he uses the term ‘allies’ in a military sense, and tells us
how the Normans distorted the togetherness implied in that concept and fomented discord by means of it. Discord
in your ranks with invaders all around you is deadly. Isn’t there an old saying, ‘the house divided falls’? He may
have been thinking of Ireland in 1893 and the previous 700 years of war, always against an enemy with a foothold
within the country. It wasn’t a case of Ireland going outside to wage wars. Maybe he thought back to A D 1200,
when the 700 years began, and reflected sadly ‘if only the O’Connors and others had been unified’.

There is a lot to think about in what he says – as in many other places in his book. Unity was supposed to
be a by-product of the swordland expansion in Ireland that began long before 1200. It wasn’t unity in a military
sense but rather administrative unity with the rest of Christendom that they sought – a kind of better Rome. But by
the 1100s, there was a more precise notion of forming a unified feudal (military-contract) kingdom in Ireland with
an Irish high king. The swordland expansion policy failed to achieve that. But in the process of trying, it sowed
discord in the only unified system of order that Ireland previously had – the order among sovereignties, similar to
today’s international order. You see, my thoughts keep slanting back to the tuath.

In thinking of those times if we bring to mind the contrast between the earlier ‘from-the-bottom-up’ order
of society in Ireland and the later ‘from-the-top-down’ order gradually being brought in, we might get a better
sense of the whole history of Ireland – more than just the 700 years – and also, how Ireland fits into world history.
today. I’m beginning to see Ireland’s early history in that way now and I’m constantly looking back to those times
to see how things were going in the tuath. So, when I’m reading an interesting book about history in Ireland like
Father Fahey’s, that’s the sort of thing I do.

An important thing I got out of what Fr. Fahey said above was the line about there being supporters for
each of the two opposing Cathals within Aidhne. To me this is another failure of the save-the-tuath-by-alliance
policy that the O’Clerys, as I imagine them, so consistently saw to be dangerous to the tuath. For the alliance
policy to work, you have to have one partisan alliance in mind, not either or. Notice how the Normans quickly
began to play the either-or game with their policy of perverting alliances from the swordlander point of view.

What I’m thinking is that, as the 1100s ended and the 1200s were beginning, the tuath chieftainship had
lost the way, as far as policy goes. When the son of Cathal Crovedearg blinded Donnchadh that must have been a
devasting shock to them all. It may have shocked Aidhne into selecting a stronger-minded chieftain and it seemed
they got that when Eoghan (Ó hAidhin) O’Heyne took over in 1225. And yet ten years after that again it was all
over for independent Aidhne.

I’ll quote some of what Fahey gives about this period, especially about Eoghan O’Heyne: “Eoghan
O’Heyne, son of Giolla na Naomh O’Heyne, succeeded to the chieftaincy in A.D. 1225. In Eoghan O’Heyne we

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find one of the most active chieftains in the West of Ireland. He seems to have continued as an uncompromising
opponent of Hugh O’Connor’s authority [the Aodh Ua Conchobair who blinded Donnchadh]. While alienating the
loyalty and support of his Southern chieftains by his cruelty, Hugh incurred the displeasure of the most powerful
of the Northern chieftains by his injustice.” (p. 147)

“Cruelty and injustice are not unusually allied with baseness. We can not be surprised to discover this
trait, therefore, in the character of Hugh O’Connor. To recover, if possible, the throne from which he had been
justly deposed, he at once sought an alliance with the English invaders encamped at Athlone. … Some Irish
chieftains were found so forgetful of the national honour as to rally around him. Amongst those were
O’Melaghlin of Meath, and Donogh Cairbreagh O’Brien, his own maternal uncle. [Hugh’s mother was Mor,
daughter of Domhnall Mor O’Brien and sister of Una who had married William de Burgo]

“With those powerful allies he commenced the work of plunder and bloodshed in the north of the
province almost without opposition. The news of their success … reached the English of Desmond, who … joined
Murtogh O’Brien in invading Connaught on the south. We are told by the annalists that this incursion was
signalized by carnage: ‘They slew all the people they caught, and burned their dwellings and villages’ … The only
effect which this carnival of bloodshed in Aidhne and South Connaught had on Hugh O’Connor was a feeling of
jealousy that he himself had no share in the plunder … as he had in northern districts of the province” (p. 148)

“The chieftains of Aidhne did not suffer this like passive slaves. Owen O’Heyne [Eoghan] was, as we
have seen, lord of the territory at the period. He was energetic, brave, and active; in a word ‘one of the most
conspicuous chieftains that ever ruled the territory’ [Customs of Hy Fiachrach, p. 399] But, unable to contend
with such powerful forces, he wisely awaited such reinforcements as Turlogh O’Connor was able to send him,
under the command of his brother, Hugh O’Connor.” [different from the other Hugh, who was a cousin]

“Meantime O’Brien and his English friends, continuing their raid unopposed, effected a junction with
Hugh O’Connor [the blinder] and his English allies. … Fearing no opposition now in the Southern districts which
he had so ruthlessly ravaged, he sent on ‘a detachment of his people before him with immense spoils’ [FM] The
Lord of Aidhne [Eoghan] was vigilant, and ready with his ‘select men’. He boldly attacked the Munster troops,
seized their ‘immense spoils’, and detained their chiefs as hostages” (p. 148)

The next event is significant in regard to tuath history..It shows that the sovereignty of the tuath was still
understood and in a sense recognized, as late as the year 1225, by chiefs or tuath kings like Eoghan O’Heyne. It’s
the main reason I’ve put Fr. Faheys description of events here in detail. He might be the only one who has
mentioned that a treaty was ‘solemnly entered into’ by the tuath king of the sovereignty of Aidhne in 1225.

“A peace treaty was soon after solemnly entered into, binding O’Brien, on the one side, to respect the
territory of Aidhne, and make no hostile incursions on it in future, and obliging O’Heyne, on the other side, to set
the hostages free. But it would seem that the obligations of solemn treaties, as well as the claims of patriotism,
were equally disregarded by this degenerate descendant of the hero of Clontarf. We find him immediately after
violating his solemn agreement, and once more joining his royal nephew. Hugh O’Connor [the blinder], and his
English allies.”

This incident may have been the last exercise of Aidhne’s sovereignty and sad to say it was this strong
tuath king who found it necessary to make ‘peace’ with Richard de Burgo around the year 1235. I don’t know any
of the details of it. Fr. Fahey merely says: “We find Eoghan O’Heyne, only ten years after the victory at Ardrahan
[in 1225] on ‘the warmest terms of friendship with the English’ [Customs of Hy Fiachrach, p. 400]” (p. 158). He
likely went through the ritual of submitting to the Crown (of England) and then was regranted his ‘lordship’ at the
‘pleasure’ of the same. Aidhne became a feudal estate, like those in Gaul.

The O’Clerys may have given active support to Eoghan O’Heyne during that resistance in 1225. Tadhg
O’Clery, or perhaps Giolla Íosa O’Clery, would have been head of the family in those years. They might even
have inspired that rare if not unique example of a treaty between a tuath and an overlord. The idea of it is
completely in harmony with the beliefs and practice of the early O’Clerys. I suspect the O’Clerys might have
attracted the attention of the swordlanders and Normans at that time.

After the death of Eoghan in 1252, the tuath was under attack on at least three occasions that Fahey
mentions, in 1258, with the burning of “many street towns”, in 1263, with the total ravaging of “a great portion”
of the country “as far as Echtge [east] and Galway [northwest]”, and then, in 1264, when “the castles of Long
Mask and Ardrahan were taken by Walter de Burgo”(p.160). The O’Clerys, under Domhnall Ó Cléirigh, may
have taken a leading part in Aidhne’s defense in these years because it was soon after 1264 that they and the
MacGillakellys were singled out for expulsion. The O’Heynes, O’Shaughnessys, and others, were not expelled.

Later, Fahey gives only one tantalizing hint about the O’Clerys participation during these ending times.
On page 171, he writes “After the death of Eoghan O’Heyne, A.D. 1253, the notices of his family which are
preserved in our annals are few and meagre. They saw, perhaps, in the fate of their kinsmen, the O’Clerys, the

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danger of ineffectual resistance.” That final phrase sticks in my mind. It makes me wish he, or the O’Clerys, or
history itself, had said more about this resistance, ineffectual or not.

It seems that the O’Clerys in the 1250s still had the mindset of defending Aidhne that Cléireach had in
850, four hundred years earlier. And it was the mindset of Cléireach’s grandsons, the first O’Clerys, who were
defending more than the physical coasts and landscape of Aidhne. They were defending family, the kindred, and
from that they took up the leadership of the tuath, the inherited order in their society.

We know that the O’Clerys went on to effect resistance in other quarters. They served as poets and
historians to the Ó Domhnall chiefs in their long independence struggle until 1600. Shortly after that resistance
became ‘ineffectual’ too, three O’Clerys participated in the writing of the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, the
Annals of the Four Masters. They were Tadhg an tSléibhe Ó Cléirigh (Tadhg of the Mountain), who became
Brother Michel O’Clery, his natural brother Conaire Ó Cléirigh, and their 3 rd-cousin-once-removed Cúcoig-
críche Ó Cléirigh, who also left us the genealogy.

The three O’Clerys were ‘resisting’ the loss of much of Ireland’s long history. This last resistance, at
least, hasn’t been shown to be ineffectual yet.

39. The expulsion of the O’Clerys from Aidhne.
As I mentioned above, Fahey remarks that “the O’Clerys retained a high position amongst their

clansmen until the close of the thirteenth century [1200s] when they were driven out of their possessions by the De
Burgos.” (p.118) Among all my many books, Fahey’s History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh has
by far the most information about the O’Clerys while they were in Aidhne. Perhaps a few of his paragraphs about
their expulsion and what became of their lands won’t be out of place here:

“We think it very probable that the expulsion of the O’Clerys, former chieftains of Aidhne, occurred soon
after the Castle of Ardrahan was wrested from the O’Heynes by Walter de Burgo. [ in 1264] … O’Donovan does
not give the exact date; he only states in a general way that their expulsion may be referred to the second half of
the thirteenth century.” [ I believe Fahey is referring to John O’Donovan’s Tribes and Customs of Hy Fiachrach,
p. 394]

“O’Donovan is of the opinion that it was in the time of Domhnal, seventh in descent from Eoghan, who
died in 1063, that they were forced by their Norman plunderers to fly from their ancestral possessions. Domhnal
O’Clery had four sons”.

“The oldest, John, surnamed ‘the Comely’, was founder of the most remarkable branch of the family,
which in two generations after became permanently settled in Donegal. There under the patronage of the
powerful chieftains of Tirconnell, they became remarkable as historians, some of whom have acquired
imperishable fame. From this illustrious stem are descended Michael and Conary O’Clery, two of the most able
compilers of the annals of the Four Masters.”

“Daniel O’Clery, the second son, was ancestor of the O’Clerys of Tirawley. From Thomas, the third son,
are descended the O’Cerys of Breifny O’Riely, a territory which comprised the entire county of Cavan, with the
exception of two baronies. Cormac, the youngest son, was ancestor of O’Clerys of Kilkenny.”

“We have not been able to find the exact limits of the O’Clery territory in Aidhne authoritatively fixed.
We think, however, that they held a considerable portion of the north-eastern districts of Kilmacduagh at the time
of their expulsion. And we think this assumption sufficiently established by the fact that these districts were seized
and appropriated at that period by the two younger sons of Walter de Burgo, Hubert and Redmond, brothers of
the Red Earl of Ulster. Hubert de Burgo was founder of the Iser Kelly family known as the Mac Hubert Burkes.”
[Iser Kelly may be Díseart Cheallaigh – St. Cellach’s Retreat.]

“Redmond Burke … seized another very important portion of the O’Clery possessions … the extensive
district known as ‘Oireaght Redmond’ [Redmond’s Patrinomy]. This district … included 58 ½ quarters of land in
Ballycahalan parish, Kilbecanty, and Ballyconnell and Ballylisbrane.” [I believe these places are east and south
of Gort. All the above citations are from pages 161 and 162].

I made several charts on the De Burgo families and I would say Hubert and Redmond (alias John) de
Burgo were about age 8 and age 6, respectively, when their father Walter died in 1271. By the time they would be
old enough to ‘seize’ these lands, the O’Clerys were ten years and more gone out of them – if they left in 1267.
On the other hand, if Hubert and Redmond were old enough to physically expel the O’Clerys, or a few that
remained behind, that may extend the period of their expulsion into the 1280s or later.

J. P. Hynes also has a few words about the later times of the O’Clerys in Aidhne. He implicates an
Aidhne kindred, the Uí Seachnasaigh, in the lead up to the expulsion of the O’Clery families: “After the Anglo-
Norman invasion and under pressure from their cousins the O’Shaughnessys, the O’Clerys were forced out of the

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Ui Fiachrach Aidhne settling in Donegal and Derry.. ..” (p.85) He says no more about the role played by the

O’Shaughnessys, and I haven’t seen that mentioned anywhere else.

The Uí Seachnasaigh, after the decline of their rivals in the Cinel Aedh of Echtge, the Uí Cathail, begin

to rise around the mid-1200s. In the 1600s, they are hosts to Dubhaltach MacFhirbishigh during his stays in

Kilmacduagh. There was some family connection. They may have contributed as a source to his interpretation of

the genealogies connected to old Aidhne.

Reading about the expelling of the O’Clerys brings my thoughts back to the Viking raid on Aidhne in

816 and even to Bishop Arnulf and Pepin of Landen redistributing ancestral lands of old Gaul to choice

individuals and military ranks in the mid-600s. In the late 1200s, descendants of the Franks and those Danes who

resettled in Normandy came back to Aidhne and they brought their feudal ideas of reorganizing ancestral land

with them. Soon the ancient tuath of Aidhne would be no more. In its place would be a mere district within a

larger district. Its name would be changed and its human (ancestral) origin would be forgotten.

Fr. Fahey says: “The actual possessions of the De Burgos in Aidhne never extended much beyond the

O’Clery territory, and portions of the territory of the O’Cahills in the east of Kinelea.” (p. 168). As time went on,

the name became ‘a Burc’and then ‘Burke’. Like their neighbors, they all became ‘Irish’ with concerns for the fate

of Ireland as a nation.

The O’Heyne line continued on within the districts of the diocese of Kilmacduagh as ‘feudal’ families of

some status – with several castles – until the end of the 1500s at least. Before he gets to that, Fr. Fahey has a few

words about the last few names I included on chart (30).

“The family of Eoghan O’Heyne was continued through his son John [Seaán], who had a son Hugh

[Aodh], who had a son Donogh [Donnchadh], who, according to our annalists was slain in A.D. 1340. But the

only record of those generations preserved by our annalists is that of the death of Donogh at the hands of his own

kinsman.” (p. 171)

And well they should have preserved that record. There it is. The real end of the tuath Aidhne – a kin-

slaying. Forget the feudal regrant of it in 1235. The feudal system is ethereal, one of those dreams about power

that came down from Mount Olympus. Kin-slaying touches the substance that makes the tuath, kindred -- and it

can be fatal to the heart. So, we’ll say the end came in 1340

“In A,D. 1261, the Four Masters state that ‘Mulfavale O’Heyne slew Hugh O’Connor[not the blinder],

for which O’Heyne was himself slain by the English,’ A.D. 1263. In the beginning of the next century, 1326, the

death of Nicholas O’Heyne is recorded. Donogh, great-grandson of Eoghan O’Heyne, had two sons, who were

successively ‘Lords’ of Aidhne, Owen and Muircheartach. Owen was slain by his kinsmen, A.D. 1340.” (p. 171)

That’s part of the same kin-slaying – not only of the father but also of one of his sons – and with that, I’ll

conclude this bit of history without a happy ending.

--------- ----------- -----------

I’m trying to think back to what kind of an ending I had in mind for my charts when I began them. I was

careful to save them all – even those I hadn’t finished. I suppose I imagined that my children would find them

some day after I was gone to the big library in the sky. But without words to explain them and words about the

history behind them they would have been like cave or cliff-face drawings. Very hard to figure out. So, maybe

now at least there is a happier ending for some of the charts.

I’m glad I wrote about the O’Clery charts. They were important to me. I did many other charts but there

are thousands more that can be made from the wealth of material left to us by the genealogists of Ireland. If

anyone is interested, there is just one main rule to follow: Keep the same generation on the same horizontal.

And, you’ll have to add words explaining some things.

There is more I didn’t get to say about the rhythm of generations that makes this charting possible.

Generations can be numbered and counted in a vertical sort of way through time. Unlike the flooding of the Nile

or ‘cycles’ of the sun and moon, it’s a human rhythm. There are also horizontal and diagonal relationships

between the humans generated – cousins, aunts, uncles – which the Nile, sun, and moon don’t have. The

generations are like a human chronology system and a kind of human map.

I think the Irish long ago knew this. There’s evidence in the Irish language. For example, first-cousins

were ‘a dó is a dó le chéile’ (‘two and two together’). Diagonal relationships – aunts, uncles, and cousins from

generations ‘removed’ – were made too. With numbers in a pair like that, they could relate one to another in

distance and time. They had a ‘two-dimensional’ system in their talking and thinking, though they didn’t draw it

on paper. I’ve found it very easy to convert pages of genealogy written in prose by early scribes into flawless

charts, as if they had the chart already in their mind. But you’ll have to find out things like that for yourself.

® Raymond J. Clarke, October 2009

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Appendix I: Chart (32) Firbolgs and Their Connections to Later History
( from charts I made in 2004)
Geanann generations: Gg

Geanann [ son of Deala, son of Lách (GT-A149] 1

Eun [Geanann and Deala, among the first Firbolgs who landed in Ireland] ® 2

Uamor 3

|

Fear Da Magh “Man of Two Plains, that is, the Ancient Plain of Sanb and the Plain of 4

| Aghar, son of Umhor…” (GT) [ ?= plain of Adhar in or beside Tulach Aidhne] ®

Fear Da Tonn “Man of Two Waves, … the wave of Inis Caorach of Corca Bhaisginn [ ?south 5

| east of Tulach Aidhne] and the wave of Inis Gluaire” (GT)[ ?= Guaire ? ] ®

Faolchu Fualeach 6

Raon Roghlan 7

Fear Da Benn “Man of Two Peaks, … the peak of Cnoc Aighle and Beann Boirne (GT) 8

| [ ?=Boirne, west of Aidhne]

Tuaim Teineadh [from the genealogy of Eochaidh Feidhlech, in Rawlinson B 502] 9

Ran Roglan / 10

Fiodga Essamna Emma 11

| | ?Å---------- ----------- Knox feels that “the true ancestry of Eochaidh

Iolar Ceutaigh Rogan_____ Feidhlech is Domnonian” (p.3) The Domnonians 12

| || are also listed under general name of ‘Fir Bolg’

Daire Find Log Find Aigne 13

| | [?Aidhne] ®

Aodh Finn Find 14

| mac Loga

| king | of ?Cruachan/ Tara

Fiac Eochaidh 15

Fir Bolg | Feidlech Ulaid Ulaid Lagin

___?____ king | ?Aidhne dau | mother druid mother

Umhor Cutra Fidach Medb == Ailill Magu ------Cathbad = Nes = Fachtna Nuadat fosterfather 16

|___________________ | | Mor |______ | Fathach Necht of Cet

| | | poet | | K-374 dau | dau | dau | king | mother |_______ \

Aongus Adhar Tamhan Benn (Fraech) ===Findabair Dectire Find- Conchobar Magu==Ailill Fergus Bascan Dedaid 17

|___________________ | | chaem mac Nesa | Fairce | |

|| | || || ________dau_| | | |

Conall Iorgus Cing Cime Domnall Setanta Conall Cernach Ailill Cet Mata == Ross Eltan Ros 18

Caol | ‘Cú Chulainn’ Find | | Ruadh |

XÆ XÆ XÆ XÆ | ÅX ÅX Å| X | king | | ÅX

Oengus Find Sanb Ailill Cairbre Suallt 19

| | mac Mata Nia Fer |

Oengus Fert Garad Trenmor 20

king | ||

Conall Cruachna Å-------- fosterfather of Conn Morna Umall 21

_______ |_________ \ | _______ |

|| | king \ ||

Cetgen Eochu Feradach Mug Lama Conn Cetchathach Eogan Goll (Aedh) Find 22

|| | === |_______ Taidlech ‘mac Cumhaill’

(?) king | | dau | || | dau | | ____|_____

Uinche Aid Forgna === Baill Gheal === Art Sadb ======Ailill Olum | Oisin 23

X Æ (Álain) | | __?___ dau | Å X |

Aidhne Cormac Eogan Cormac == Samuir Oscar 24

mac Airt Mor Cas

This chart is built on a story about a man-to-man battle of four brothers from Aidhne against four heroes sent to
collect a tribute from their father. Though the combatants might be from two generations, the chart places them in one
generation. It is a synchronized chart. It is testing for consistency even in uncertain ‘legendary’ time.

The four heroes are Conall Cearnach, Cú Chulainn, Ros, and Cet. If the story is true, the time-frame of the combat
was probably shortly before AD 100 In a tract written by Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh in 1650, it says (as translated):

“Those four warriors go to Cruachain to call to account the Sons of Umhor, and the satisfaction that was given to
them was for their hostageship was that Aonghus son of Umhor should bring his own son, Conall, and his three brothers to
stand combat for it against their sureties, Cing against Ros, Cime Cethirchen against Conall Cearnach, Iorgus against Ceat,
and Conall son of Aongus himself against Cú Chulainn.” [Genealogical Tracts I , Ó Raithbheartaigh, Dublin 1932, A153]

One unexpected by-product of this synchronism is that Find mac Cumhal is brought to within one generation of
Uinche of Kinvara, whom he is said to have slain in combat. Also a by-product of this chart are the generation numbers that
can be attached from Geanann (no.1) through to Cormac Art (no. 24). This count is much less than for other traditional lists. It
is already backed up by one additional ‘synchronization’ here, so it’s something to bear in mind. Eusebius would notice it.

® October 2009

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Appendix II: Chart (33) A Surprising Chart Built on Guaire Aidhne’s Battles GT ‘Fir Bolg’ Geanann generations: Gg

Conn Æ Mug-Lama Conn Eochaid Fiacha Suigde Eogan Taidlech Å Conn 22

| | | [son of | Conall Cruachna] | \ [ bro. of Conn] | _____|

Art Conaire Mor == Sara Aid Cairpre Rigronn Ailill Olum == Sadb Art 23

| | [last king | of old Aidhne] | ______(?)__| |

Cormac mac Airt Ailill Baiscan __?__ Art Coirp Cormac Cas Eogan Mor Cormac mac Airt 24

| || ||| |

Cairpre Lugdach __?__ Bric [LL] Mug-Corb Fiacha Cairpre 25

Lifechar |_________ | | | Mullethan Lifechar

| || ||| |

Fiachu Ailill Æ Corp __?__ Ailill Eogan Fear Å Ailill Fiachu 26

Sraibtine Flann Beg |____ | Flann Beg | Corb Flann Beg Sraibtine

|__________ | || || | | / B-291 |

Domnall Muiredach Maine Munchaín Imchad _ ?__ Lugdach Brión Oengus Láre`Fidach Å Muiredach 27

| [B-92] Tirech Æ ‘Dáire Cerbba’ ___| | |= Bolce | Tirech |= Láir Derg Tirech

| | | | Eoganachta | | Déisi | |_________ |

Echdach Fiachach Decc __?__ \ Conall Intait / Lugdach Crimthand Mong == Eochu 28

| Fidgenti | | Corcc |___ Mend / Mar Find Mugmedon

| St. Patrick ______ | | | | | | [? kingdom to Conall] | |=Carenn

Maine Lugdach Brión Cett Eogan Nad-Fraech Mac- Conaill / Brión Fiachra Niall

| Find | [bap. by Ptk] Aidhne |________ Thail Echluath | Foltsnathach Noígiallach 29

| || | | | | _|_ \ (?) | | | d. | ?452 B-81

Bressal Endaí Intat Mogan Conall Ailill Oengus \ Tál / Cass Duach (?) Dathi Conall 30

| | Dárai | | | | ‘qui fuit Cass’ sl. | 502 B-80 | Criomthand

| || | | | d. | 490- 2 | (?) | (?) Uí Néill

Dallan Fergus Conall Donnan Goibnend Crimthand Feidelmid Blat Eochu Eochaid Fergus / 31

| | (Gabra) | X | 538 | | (Blod) Tirmchatha Breac Cerrbel

| || | | || | (?) | |

Lugdach Conall Araide Baítan Cobthach Endaí Crimthand Carthand Aed [?] Diarmait 32

| | (Mac |-Arda) | | || || r. ! c.544-565

Uí Maine Uí Fidgeinti Uí Baiscinn Aidhne Ua nEnna Desmuman Dál gCais Uí Briúin Míde Brega

Feradach Cúán Brenand Laidcind Colmán Amalgad Aed Dubh Echach Uatu Colman Aed 33

sl.| 627 | | | _r._|_?602/3-622 | |___ Ballderg | | Mar | Sláine

| || || | | | | d. | 601 d. | 555-8 r. | c.598-604

Cormac Cuanach Nechtan Talam- Liad- Guaire Cúán Failbe Conall Ragallach Suibne Diarmait 34

| || nach gnend Aidhne = |_______ Flaind | | | r. | 654-665

| || | dau ____ d. | 662 || | dau | r. | 628-37 | d. | 649 d. | 600 d. | 665 B

Coirpre Fergus Oengus Aithechd Créide Artgal =Ornait Maele- Colgan Aed Conall Cernach 35

| | | Cáech ___, | ,_____ / | umae | | Guthbinn Sotal

| | _d_| 636 / | | ___| d.| 678 | d. | 635 d. | 668

Dícoll Dún- Don- Dínert- Rechtabrad Fergal Usnig Nad-fraích Caidleine Airmetach Niall 36

| galach ennach ach | Aidhne _|_ | | ||

| _|_ d. | 683 ?sl _|_ 649 | d. | 696-7 || d. | 637 d. | 701B

Fidchellach Ercc Fland Torpad Faelgus Tairdelbach Diarmait Dian Fogartach 37

| | | _____|____________ | | d. | 689 r._|_722-724

Dlúthach Flann Fothad Cathmóg Aodh Donngal Mathgamain Murchad Midi 38

d.| 743 AT ___d. | 762-3 | | || | d | 715

Indrechtach Scandlan Olchobar Cléireach Cumascach Caithnia Snédgus Anluan Domnall Midi 39

| r. | 753-86 d.| 796-7 ___|____ | d | 794 | | r. | 743-763

Ailill (Dunadach LL) Mac-Leigind ?dau = Cedadach Connmhac Artgal Corc/Lorc Donnchad Midi 40

| |_____ | | d. | 798 | | r. | 770-797

Finnacht Scandlan Dub-Inrecht Cléireach Lonáin Lachtnae Lachtan Mael Ruanaid 41

| || fl. | 850 || | d. | 843

Cellach Flannabra Olchobar Maolfabhaill Flann Buadachán Lorcan Mael Sechnaill 42

| || d. | 890 sl._|_895-6 | ?d. | 923-9 r. | 846-862

Aed ? Ciar-maccan Fland Flann Ó Cléirigh (1) Cellachán Cennétic Flann Sinna 43

| || d. | 952 ______ d. |_ 954 d. | 951 r. | 879-916

Murchad ? Flannabra LL Ciguran Comhaltan O Cl. | |= Bé Bhionn Donnchad Donn 44

| d. | 976 |_______ | r. | 919-944

Tadg Giolla Cheallaigh Mor ==============Brian Domnall 45

Ó Ceallaigh (1) Ó Cléirigh ||

|___(?)______ sl. | 1003 by Tadg _________________ r. | 1002-14 d. | 952

Diarnait Tadg Ó Ceallaigh Cugaela Ó Cl. Murchad Eachaidh=|___ Mael Sechnaill 46

| ?sl._|_ 1014 d. | 1025____ sl. | 1014 Dub Cobhlaigh=| | r.(1). | 980-1002

Aed Braon Ó Cl. Mor Toirdelbach Donnchad Tadg r.(2) !_1015-22 47

Ó Ceallaigh sl. | 1033 || sl. |_ 1014 r. | 1022-64 sl. | 1023 by the Élí

by the Élí ==========================Toirdelbach 48

O = O’Brien, M. A. B = Byrne, F. J. ® May 2009

(1) O- 172 (2) and (3) O- 365 (4) O- 230 (5) various (6) O-.380 (7) O- 253 (8)O- 216 (9) O- 250 (10)B- 282 (11)B- 281

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Appendix II (continued):
Chart (33) is an extention of charts (14) and (15) in which I tried to illustrate a portion of the text I found in Francis

John Byrne, Irish Kings and High-Kings, London 1987, pp. 239-245, where he describes two battles, one in 627 and the other
in 649, that Guaire Aidhne took part in while he was king in the tuath Aidhne.

Byrne gives the names of the leading opponents and allies in these battles. This is history and we have to assume
these men were alive together and of an age to engage in battles. They are contemporaries – in the spread of one or two
generations and possibly a third because the battles were about 22 years apart. In this time of Ireland’s history, these leaders
would have genealogies, so the text in Byrne cried out for a synchronism. In charts (14) and (15), I identified likely persons
from genealogical material in Byrne’s book and also in M.A. O’Brien’s Corpus Genealogiarum Hiberniae, Dublin 1976, and I
synchronized a few generations before and after the battles. Here, in chart (33), I looked for how far I could go with these
genealogy lines – and a few others of interest that I added – up and down, and across, the space of one whole page.

I didn’t know what would happen. There were a few surprises in store for me. Before I tell you what they are, let me
write down this thought I just have now: It’s more than ‘a few surprises’ waiting for me. In a way, all this genealogy material
has been lying there in Ireland’s history in a series of lay-outs, strung out separately because of the page by page make-up of
books –– waiting for years, even centuries, for someone to put them together, side by side. Anybody can do it. And like as not,
there will be surprises in store for those that do.

The first line I extended up, or back, through time, was of the Uí Maine. Twelve generations beyond Cormac, the
man equivalent to Guaire Aidhne, the line ended with Conn of the Hundred Battles. When I extended down from Guaire’s
match, it showed Tadhg Ó Ceallaigh, who was a match for Giolla Ceallaigh Ó Cléirigh, and it was this Tadhg who killed
Giolla Ceallaigh in 1003 – a real historical ‘synchronism’. I felt I was on the right track because of that.

The next line I extended was for the Uí Baiscinn. After twelve generations, it ended in Mug-Lama, whose son had
married Sara, a daughter of Conn of the Hundred Battles. So he was a match for Conn too. I went ahead and did the same for
the Uí Fidgentí and the Ua nEnna. They had a junction at Ailill Flann Beg and from there the line went up to Eogan Taidlech,
whose son married Sadb, another daughter of Conn .That was two more matches. With the Desmuman, who were Eoganachta,
and with the Dál gCais lines it was the same thing – through Ailill Beg to end, after twelve generations above Guaire, as a
match with Conn. Just to have it there, I worked the Déisí line down from a brother of Conn to the generation before Tál ‘who
was Cas’ in the Dál gCais line.

I was very ‘impressed’, let’s say, by the fact that all these lines traced from the battle participants matched each other
so well. It’s kind of ironic that Guaire Aidhne was there because his Uí Fiachrach Aidhne line didn’t match the others at all.
They were 12 generations from Conn but it would take 15 generations to trace Guaire’s line to Conn. I knew it would be the
same for the Uí Briúin lines (including the Silmurray) and the Uí Neill lines because all three descended from sons of Eochaidh
Mugmedon and their lines go through him before reaching back to Conn. It was obvious that there were two genealogical
schemes showing up here – a shorter and a longer scheme.

For some time I had been aware of trouble with Eochaidh Mugmedon’s line. I have large charts where I tried to
shorten the generations before Eochaidh, between him and Conn. I was reading Byrne who was suspicious of the lines after
Eochaidh. He felt that Eochaidh’s son Niall of the Nine Hostages had been ‘pre-dated’ to accommodate stories about Saint
Patrick. Niall’s traditional year of death was 405. Byrne, following James Carney I believe, thought the year should be 452
(a difference of 47 years, just two generations in the way I used to figure it). Byrne also challenged the reliability of several
named descendants of the eldest son of Eochaidh, Brion, as I showed with question marks on chart (2). In another place, he
seemed to question whether Eogan Aidhne was actually a descendant of the middle son Fiachra.

So, I can’t say that ‘trouble’ with Eochaidh Mugmedon’s family was new to me. But on chart (33), I could see for
myself the consistency of another scheme that didn’t agree with the Eochaidh scheme. That was new. And don’t forget that, in
and around that twelfth generation, descendants in these lines were alive together and took part in historically dated battles.
Further on still, in the time of the early O’Clerys, we have those important generation-matches known as marriages, the subject
of so much of this writing here. The consistency is supported by what seem to be real-life synchronisms.

Of course, for a while it was a puzzle to me as to how I could ever show these two different schemes on a single
chart. And then it came to me out of the blue. I’ll temporarily incorporate the Mugmedon family into the shorter scheme and
see what it looks like. That’s what I’ve done on chart (33). I doubt if anyone else before me has done such a radical thing.
I don’t know yet whether it will be supported by the facts of history. However, there are a few things in it that surprised me in
the way it affects the three main dynastic lines of later history.

In Guaire’s line, known as the Ui Fiachrach Aidhne, this arrangement breaks the connection between Eogan Aidhne
and the Eochaidh Mugmedon family entirely. Eogan is now a contemporary of his former great grandfather Fiachra. There are
only five missing names now separating him from Aidhne’s king Aid. This might go along with Byrne’s suspicion that Eogan
had a local ancestry. Knox might have agreed with that and might have been disposed to suggest an ancestry for Eogan within
the Fir Craíbe. Could Guaire and the O’Clerys have been Fir Craíbe? If they knew that, it could explain a lot.

In the Uí Neill line, Niall of the Nine Hostages now seems to fit well into the later dates that Byrne suggests. And it
doesn’t seem to affect his descendants in Brega and Míde. In regard to the Uí Briúin, this scheme eliminates three generations
of those confused descendants of Brion that Byrne and others have suspicions about.

It occurs to me now that the shorter scheme may be earlier, before the dating of St. Patrick became a problem, maybe
in the 700s. The longer scheme came later, maybe in the 1000s, and had something to do with suiting the dynasties.

Chart (33) is a preliminary sketch proposing a single scheme. After all, it’s only a few lines. If more genealogy lines
are brought in, something entirely different may be revealed. Not to worry, it will make a new picture.

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Appendix III Chart (34) Cléireach Descendants, Cucogry O’Clery’s Line, and Some Clarkes Cg Gg

Cléireach Cg = Cléireach gen. Gg = Geanann gen. 1 41

| fl 850

Maolfabhail (i.e. Eidhean ?) ( nine O’Clery kings of the tuath Aidhne) 2 42

|_r. ?866.- 890__________________/___________________________________________

Maol-chiar, i.e. Flann Ó Cléirigh / Tigernach Ó Cléirigh Eochagan Ó Cléirigh 3 43

| r. 922 - 952 slain by Munstermen__Æ | r. 890 - 917 slain by a Dane Å | d. 950 (lawgiver)

Comhaltan Ó Cléirigh Maolmacduach Ó Cléirigh | Eogan Ó Cléirigh 4 44

| r. 952 - 976 __ r. 917 - 922 slain by Danes | d. 967 (bishop,Tuam)

Giolla Ceallaigh Ó Cléirigh Muiredach Ó Cléirigh Mor b. ? 942 5 45

| r. 988 - 1003 slain by Tadhg O Ceallaigh r. 976 - 988 | (married Brian ‘Boru’ )

Cúgaela Ó Cléirigh Murchad 6 46

|_r. 1003 - ? 1025________________________________________________ sl. 1014 at Clontarf

Braon Ó Cléirigh Aidhean Ó Cléirigh Mor b. ? 1007-9 7 47

| r. ? 1025 – 1033 slain by Eli | | (married Toirdelbach )

Eoghan Ó Cléirigh ? Giolla na Naomh na Foghla ? Domhnal Ruadh 8 48

| d. 1063 d. 1100 sl. 1056

Domhnall Ó Cléirigh 9 49

Giolla na Naomh Ó Cléirigh \ 10 50

Tighernach Ó Cléirigh (seven heads of O’Clery kindred in Aidhne) 11 51

Muiredhach Ó Cléirigh / 12 52

Tadhg Ó Cléirigh 13 53

Giolla Íosa Ó Cléirigh 14 54

Domhnall Ó Cléirigh ~ (Domhnall, his four sons, and all O’Clerys, expelled from Aidhne around 1267) 15 55

|_________________________________________________________________________

Seaan Sgiamhach Ó Cléirigh Daniel O Cléirigh Thomas O Cléirigh Cormac O Cléirigh 16 56

| c. 1267 (to Tirawley, Mayo) | (to Tirawley, Mayo) ( to Breifni, Cavan) (to Kilkenny)

Diarmaid Domhnall ( heads of dispersed O’Clery families) 17 57

| (Tirawley) |________________________________/______________

Cormac Tomas / Muirchertach 18 58

| ( to Tir Conaill, Donegal) |__________________________________ |__________________

Giolla Brighde \ Seaan Donnchadh Cormac Brian Diarmaid Glas 19 59

| (O’Clery | |_______________ | | |

Giolla Riabhach scholars and Ruaidhri David Buidhe Tuathal Emonn Cron Seaan an Chladaigh David Buidhe 20 60

| d. 1421 ‘ollamhs’ to the | | || | |

Diarmaid O’ Donnells ) Diarmaid Brian na Broige Fear Dorcha Emonn Cron Muirchertach Thomas 21 61

| fl. 1430-40 / | |______ | | | |

Tadhg Cam / Cormac Tomas & BrianOg Maolmhuire Duibhgeann Dubhaltach David Buidhe 22 62

|_d. 1492_(Cill Barrain, Donegal)________________________________________________________________

Diarmaid Tuathal Giolla Riabhach 23 63

|_sl. 1522_in battle_____________________________ | d.1512_________ | d. 1527

Cúcoigcríche Br. Cormac Tadhg Cam Uilliam Muiris 24 64

|_fl 1546__________________________________ sl. 1542 | d. 1565 | d. 1573

Cosnamhach Maccon Duibhgeann Sile Donnchadh == Honora Ultach 25 65

|_ d. 1584_______________ | d. 1595 sl. 1600 ______________|_____________

Diarmaid Ó Cléirigh Seaan Lughaidh Conaire Maolmhuire Tadhg an tSléibhe 26 66

|_d. (Coolbeg, Donegal )_____ Ó Cléirigh O Cléirigh ‘Fr. Bernardin ‘ Br. Michél

Cúcoigcríche Ó Cléirigh Cairbre / Ó Cléirigh’ / Ó Cléirigh’ 27 67

| d. 1664-9 (?Donegal) \ / / d. 1643 (Louvain)

Diarmaid Ó Cléirigh \ (Cucogry, Br. Michel, and Conaire -- -- ‘Annals of the Four Masters’ ) 28 68

| (Ballcroy, Mayo) \

Cairbre Ó Cléirigh ~ (dispossessed O’Clerys) 29 69

| (to Drung, Cavan)

Cosnamhach Ó Cléirigh b. 1693 Bearnard Ó Gabhainn or Smith ~ (He may have been a blacksmith. ??) 30 70

| d. 1759 (Drung, Cavan) | (Lara, Cavan)

Patrick O’Clery ============ Áine nic Gabhainn 31 71

d. by. ?1816 (Drung, Cavan) | (mother of 6 sons)__ ( a wild guess – just for the chart)

|| | | | ?|? /

John O’Clery (Joseph) Clery or Clerke b.(?Cavan)==Frances McGrauth 32 72

| d. 1846 (Dublin) | d. (Dublin) d. (Dublin)

John O’Clery, jr / Matthew Clarke b. 1806 (?Dublin) == Anne Slattery b. 1809 33 73

d. c. 1852 (Dublin) / | d. 1880 (Limerick} d. 1879 (Limerick)

(blacksmith Clarkes) Joseph Clarke b. 1840 (Limerick) === Fannie Kennedy b. 1838 34 74

_______________\ ________ | d. 1920 (New York) d. 1900 (New York)

(theatre-stage Peter Clark b.1878 \ Joseph Clarke b. 1864 (Limerick) === ‘Kate’ Quinn b.1867 (Clare) 35 75

. innovator)__ / d. 1934 | d. 1923 d. 1933

‘Jimmy’ Clark b. 1902 (New York) == ‘Mae’ Gaddis b.1902 (New York) 36 76

| d. 1990 d. 1969

® October 2009 Raymond Clarke b. 1929 (NewYork)== Sarah Nolan b.1929 (Cavan) 37 77

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Appendix IV:

The Ideas behind the Dedication

It might seem strange at first that I have decided to dedicate this work, My Charts, the Early O’Clerys,
and the End of Aidhne, to the Indian Nations of North America. Through them I also have in mind all the
indigenous peoples surviving around the world today.

In my writing about Ireland here, my thoughts about the Indians in America came to the surface only
once – when I referred to the wisdom in their attitude toward the land they lived on. However, under the surface,
there was much more to the influence they had on my thinking which I subconsciously applied to kindreds in
early Aidhne in my attempts to write about their tuath laws of obligation and way of life.

As a small boy in school I learned about the ‘tribes’ that had lived peacefully on Long Island long before
the ‘settlers’ came from Europe. I used to walk in the woods with my dog and imagine I was one of their tribe.
Perhaps because I had this good beginning to carry with me, I resisted the unfair depictions of ‘wild’ and ‘savage’
Indians in the Hollywood films through later years. I remember often siding with them in their battles and being
saddened by their defeats.

In more recent times I’ve watched with intense interest and made tapes of a number of televised
documentaries that finally give a fair presentation of ‘Indian’ history and their efforts today to restore their
languages, their self-reliance, and their early wisdom.

There has been a long influence on my thinking concerning the American Indian that I couldn’t help but.
bring with me into my writing on Irish history. It was hidden, except for one instance, from my conscious thought.
I didn’t notice it until I had read over what I wrote a few times. As an influence, it’s been with me from when I
was a boy until now. As far as actual knowledge about the Indian nations goes, I never grew into it. It’s as if I’m
still in the infant stage there. And yet, I was able to be influenced.

I wonder if something like the reverse could happen. If an American Indian boy learned about the tuath
kindreds in Ireland, would that actual knowledge develop into a long influence on his thinking? Would it benefit
his thinking about the history of the Indian peoples? I don’t know.

I think it would be of benefit to Ireland if young historians among the Indians or other indigenous people
contributed to the knowledge of early Irish society. There is always a need for fresh thinking. An American-Indian
point of view would be good. There are many differences in the histories but many similarities, I’m sure, in the
ideas of kinship obligation and attitude toward the land.

I hope American Indians get to read the things I tried to imagine here about some of the last of the Tuath
People in Ireland.

Raymond J. Clarke
3 December, 2009

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Jimmy Clark (1902-1990)

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