Introduction

In studying the historical data surrounding O'Donoghue Mor of Ross Castle and O'Donoghue of the Glens, my inquisitive nature demanded that I look into some of the history of the relevant eras and try to understand what was happening in Ireland around the mid to late 17th century that would cause the virtual extinction of this heritage. This study immediately generates an almost maniacal loating of the name Cromwell and all he represented both in Ireland but also in England and Scotland as well.

This is not a history book, however, so effort has been made to cite only the relevant data that substantiating claims of "Chief" as it relates to modern day Ireland.

NOTE: There is a brief Glossary at the end of this article.

Following the final conquest of all Ireland by the English in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the independent political structures of Gaelic Ireland were brought to an end. Put simply, centralising Tudor monarchs such as Henry VIII and Elizabeth I would not tolerate power structures which might threaten their authority. After Elizabeth's death in 1603 and the succession to the English throne of the Scottish monarch James I, defeated Gaelic lords such as O'Neill and O'Donnell hoped for a time to come to terms with the new order. Alas, they found that they could not, and in 1607 departed Ireland from Lough Swilly with their followers in the famous 'Flight of the Earls'. Of course Gaelic influences, particularly in the cultural sphere, survived these catastrophes, and continue to the present day, but it is important to remember that the political stuctures of Gaelic Ireland ceased to be.

The English had paid special attention to ending the Gaelic method of appointing Chiefs of their ruling families, and indeed insisted that they surrender their Gaelic titles and rights and accept English ones instead. Hence, for example, O'Brien became Earl of Thomond and O'Neill became Earl of Tyrone. The Gaelic system of appointing Chiefs or leaders was called 'Tanistry' by the English. The word itself is derived from the Gaelic Tánaiste, which effectively means Chief-in-waiting or successor to the serving Chief. In contrast to the English and feudal system of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son succeeds to office, under the Irish Brehon Law system the right to appoint a new Chief lay with the extended kingroup or derbfine, pronounced 'der-vi-neh', with a short 'i'. The derbfine was composed of the male descendants of a common great-grandfather, and its choice was not limited to the eldest son of a serving Chief, although of course he could be and not infrequently was selected to succeed his father.

While primogeniture generally made for smoother succession, Tanistry could be a cause of instability and conflict, as different power groups within the derbfine struggled for ascendancy. Indeed some historians have claimed that the system of primogeniture or succession of the eldest son had made some headway in Gaelic areas. Alhough there is much talk of Irish 'Clans' and 'Clan Chiefs', it is also important to remember that the Irish did not have a clan system exactly like the Scots, despite the many elements of Gaelic culture common to both countries. The term 'clan' is best reserved for the Scottish kin-based unit, while the anglicised term 'sept' is more appropriate for the more disparate and less feudalised kingroup system of the Irish. The great authority on Irish surnames, Edward MacLysaght, advised against the use of the term 'clan' in the Irish context, but his words have been little heeded.

In the wake of the collapse of the Gaelic order, and despite the fact that chiefdom as a real political institution had ceased to exist, nevertheless a small number of families continued to claim the titles, prominent examples including O'Brien and O'Conor Don. Probably in imitation of Scottish practice, the custom grew of affixing the definite article before the names of Irish Chiefs, for example, The O'Brien, but in Gaelic no prefix was used, hence Ó Briain. Incidentally, although it is now standard practice to write English versions of Gaelic surnames with an apostrophe after the 'O' prefix and with the 'Mac' prefix joined to the name, perhaps it is time to consider revising this custom, writing instead O Brien, Mac Dermott, and so on. It is important to stress that most Irish Chiefly titles fell into disuse, and indeed war, flight abroad and destruction of records meant that most aristocratic Gaelic lineages became obscured from the seventeenth century onwards." (Sean J Murphy MA, Centre for Irish Genealogical and Historical Studies)

"The Irish Confederate Wars, also sometimes called the Eleven Years War, were fought in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. The Wars were the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms - a series of civil wars in Kingdoms of Ireland, England and Scotland (all ruled by Charles I of England) that also included the English Civil War and civil war in Scotland. The conflict in Ireland essentially pitted the native Irish Roman Catholics against the Protestant British settlers and their supporters in England and Scotland.

The war in Ireland began with the rebellion of the Irish of Ulster in October 1641, during which they killed thousands of Scots and English Protestant settlers. The rebellion spread throughout the country and at Kilkenny in 1642 the association of The Confederate Catholics of Ireland was formed to organise the Irish Catholic war effort. The Confederation was essentially an independent state and was a coalition of all shades of Irish Catholic society, both Gaelic and Old English. The Irish Confederates professed to side with the English Royalists during the ensuing civil wars, but in reality fought their own war in defence of Irish Catholic interests.

The Confederates ruled Ireland as a de facto sovereign state until 1649, outwardly remainingly loyal to Charles I. It was the only such assembly to occur in Ireland until 1919 when the Irish Dáil first sat. From 1641 to 1649, the Confederates fought against Scottish Covenanter and English Parliamentarian armies in Ireland. They were loosely allied with the English Royalists, but were divided over whether to send military help to them in the English Civil War. Ultimately, they never sent troops to England, but did send an expedition to help the Scottish Royalists, sparking the Scottish Civil War. The wars ended in the defeat of the Confederates. They and their Royalist allies were crushed during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland by the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell in 1649-53. The wars caused massive loss of life in Ireland, comparable in the country's history only with the Great Famine of the 1840s and also saw the mass confiscation of land owned by Irish Catholics." (Wikipedia)

The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649-53) refers to the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell landed in Ireland with his New Model Army on behalf of the English Parliament in 1649. Since the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Ireland had been mainly under the control of the Irish Confederate Catholics, who in 1649, signed an alliance with the English Royalist party, which had been defeated in the English Civil War. Cromwell's forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country - bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars.

He passed a very harsh series of Penal laws against Roman Catholics and confiscated almost all of their land. The Parliamentarian reconquest of Ireland was extremely brutal, and it has been alleged that many of the army's actions during the reconquest would today be called war crimes. Cromwell is still a hated figure in Ireland. However, several historians claim that many of the actions taken by Cromwell were within the then-accepted rules of war, or were exaggerated or distorted by later propagandists.[1] These claims are contested by many other historians.[2] The Parliamentarian campaign, which Cromwell largely headed, is estimated to have resulted in the death or exile of up to a third of the Irish population.

[Penal Laws: The Penal Laws were introduced into Ireland in the year 1695 (having been in use in other countries before this). They had a pronounced effect, disenfranchising the majority of the Irish population, who were Roman Catholic or Presbyterian and in favour of the minority established Church of Ireland. Though the laws also affected adherents of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (who were concentrated in Ulster), their principal victims were members of the Roman Catholic Church, meaning over three quarters of the people on the island. The British had punished the faith of the overwhelming majority of the "mere Irish" (in contemporary English, 'mere' meant 'pure' or 'fully').

The laws were eventually repealed largely due to Irish political agitation organised under Daniel O'Connell in the 1820s, but effects of the laws in terms of sectarianism between Catholics and Protestants can still be seen, particularly in Northern Ireland, today.]

The Irish Chiefs

In the course of the Gaelic revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a number of individuals laid claim to chiefly titles, including The O'Mahony and The O'Rahilly. Alas, these gentlemen appear to have fallen victim to wishful thinking and fantasy, for no satisfactory genealogical evidence was produced to justify their claims. At the same time there was increasing interest in organising Irish 'Clans', and this culminated in the 1950s in the activities of the enthusiastic but not very scholarly Eoin 'The Pope' O'Mahony. In 1943 Edward MacLysaght was appointed as first Chief Herald of Ireland and head of the Genealogical Office (the latter has now been subsumed into the Office of the Chief Herald, which is a branch of the National Library of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin). MacLysaght took it upon himself to endeavour to regulate Chiefly titles, in an effort to counter the significant number of questionable Chiefs, including a bogus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond. Now it can be argued that MacLysaght's intervention was inappropriate in a country which was well on the way to becoming a Republic, but then as now, there was a pressing need to exert some control over the activities of fakes and fantasists.

In 1944, MacLysaght established a system of 'courtesy recognition' of Irish Chiefs, as of course formal recognition of titles is forbidden by the 1937 Constitution. MacLysaght rightly considered that Tanistry, which as we have seen is selection of Chiefs by the derbfine or kin group, was no longer a practical system after a lapse of so many centuries. As a compromise MacLysaght therefore adopted primogeniture, or senior male line descent from the last inaugurated Chief, as the basis for recognising a modern successor. This decision remains controversial today, but in the present writer's opinion provides the only practical basis on which to determine Chiefly succession. Of course, we should realise that the title of Chief is now more honorary than real, as the system that produced it is gone forever and can never be revived. And just as the method of Chiefly succession has been adapted to primogeniture, so too it is not impossible that in time female Chiefs will be recognised, as is already the case in Scotland.

Following fairly exhaustive research, some 15 Chiefs were recognised by MacLysaght in 1944-45. There then followed a gap of 45 years, when between 1989-95 an additional 7 Chiefs were recognised. Unfortunately, MacLysaght's standards were largely abandoned during the latter period, and it has now become clear that some Chiefs were recognised on the basis of flimsy or nonexistent evidence. The year 1989 also saw a renewed and largely tourism-driven interest in organising Irish 'Clans', and there was a general atmosphere of fantasy and scholarly carelessness which paved the way for what has become known as the MacCarthy Mór Hoax.

While there have been attempts in Ireland to minimise or deny the scandal, the MacCarthy Mór affair has dealt a serious blow to the reputation of Irish genealogy and heraldry and its after effects will be felt for some time to come. What happened was that a certain Terence MacCarthy of Belfast laid claim to being The MacCarthy Mór, Prince of Desmond and Chief of the MacCarthy Clan, and managed to get the then Chief Herald and his Deputy to grant him an official patent of recognition in 1992. MacCarthy then took this documentation and persuaded individuals in America and elsewhere to part with an estimated total of $1,000,000 for worthless titles and honours. A university graduate, MacCarthy was also a genealogist and heraldist of some ability, misusing his skills to produce pseudo-scholarly publications which led some to believe that Chiefs, Tanistry, the Brehon Code and other trappings of the Gaelic order could once again be restored.

Working voluntarily, the writer and others exposed MacCarthy's deception in 1999, showing that he was not of aristocratic descent and had no connection with the MacCarthys of Munster. Also exposed in a memorable Sunday Times article on the affair published in June 1999 was MacCarthy's associate Andrew Davison, the so-called Count of Clandermond, who was shown to be a convicted blackmailer. Many good people with a genuine interest in Irish heritage were deceived by MacCarthy and Davison, both of whom carried credentials issued by the Chief Herald of Ireland. The Office of the Chief Herald was obliged to strip MacCarthy of recognition in July 1999, and later quietly cancelled Davison's grants of arms in September 2000. However, the present writer has shown that other dubious or bogus Chiefs were also given recognition, including Maguire of Fermanagh and O Long of Garranelongy. The Office of the Chief Herald has not taken action in these cases, citing unspecified 'legal issues', and indeed refusing access to much of the relevant background information in its files. The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands promised to establish a committee to review procedures for recognising Chiefs in September 1999, but did a u-turn on this in February 2001, inappropriately leaving the matter in the hands of the Office of the Chief Herald, the body responsible for the problem in the first place.

In line with a recommendation of Director/Chief Herald Brendan O Donoghue and the Council of Trustees of the National Library, the Government decided at a Cabinet meeting on 23 July 2003 to sanction the discontinuation of the practice of granting courtesy recognition to chiefs (Sunday Times, Irish Edition, 27 July 2003). In an explanatory letter to the chiefs, sent be it noted after the public revelation that courtesy recognition was being discontinued, Director/Chief Herald O Donoghue summarised the advice of the Office of the Attorney General (current incumbent Rory Brady) as follows:

There is not, and never was, any statutory or legal basis for the practice of granting courtesy recognition as chief of the name; in the absence of an appropriate basis in law, the practice of granting courtesy recognition should not be continued by the Genealogical Office; and even if a sound legal basis for the system existed, it would not be permissible for me [the Chief Herald] to review and reverse decisions made by a previous Chief Herald except in particular situations, for example, where decisions were based on statements or documents which were clearly false or misleading in material respects. (Form letter of Director/Chief Herald O Donoghue to recognised chiefs and applicants for recognition, 28 July 2003, FOI release.)

The thoroughness of the purge was demonstrated by the subsequent removal of every one of the twenty or so chiefs' banners which had been on display in the State Heraldic Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.

The statement that there is no statutory basis for granting courtesy recognition to chiefs is accurate, but it can be observed that neither was there any statutory basis for granting arms before the (still unimplemented) National Cultural Institutions Act of 1997, yet the latter practice continues. The secondary claim that there is not and never was any legal basis for courtesy recognition is debatable, implying disregard for or unawareness of legal niceties on the part not only of MacLysaght but of previous Attorney Generals. At least in the summary form presented, the advice of the Office of the Attorney General is remarkably ahistorical, making no reference to the background to MacLysaght's establishment of a Register of Chiefs in the 1940s, to the issue of Tanistry versus primogeniture, or to the degree to which Ulster Kings of Arms Betham and Vicars in particular had acknowledged chiefly titles. As for the last point concerning decisions of a previous Chief Herald, it has been clearly demonstrated in the present work that the recognition of Terence MacCarthy as Mac Carthy Mór was not the only flawed decision made in the past, in that a range of spurious and questionable pedigrees, arms and titles were registered by the Office, all of which should be subject to proper review and rectification. Given the scale of the scandal, and the fact that financial and other irregularities have been alleged, there is clearly a need for a thorough official enquiry into the cases of MacCarthy Mór and other bogus or questionable Chiefs recognised by the Office of the Chief Herald.

A Register of Irish Chiefs

While the entry for the impostor MacCarthy Mór was nullified in July 1999 in the wake of his public exposure, the official Register of Chiefs held in the Office of the Chief Herald has not otherwise been corrected or updated for many years, and the other questionable chiefs recognised during the years 1989-95 were not removed. The last reliable general listings of Irish chiefs were those produced by C Eugene Swezey in The Irish Chiefs, New York 1974, and in Burke's Irish Family Records 1976. In an effort to clarify the situation as much as possible, and in order to minimise confusion and misinformation, the following list and indeed pro tempore Register of Chiefs is provided. In relation to entries 1-15, being chiefs recognised during the years 1944-45 by Chief Herald Edward MacLysaght, it should be noted that the claimants' pedigrees were subjected to thorough analysis and checking by Terence Gray, whose reports in Genealogical Office Manuscript 610 are accessible to researchers, and additionally, the pedigrees of most of these chiefs have been published in Burke's Irish Family Records, 1976. The 107th edition of Burke's Peerage, published in 2003, incorporates updated pedigrees of the chiefs recognised by the Office of the Chief Herald in the period 1944-45 only, excluding those recognised subsequently.

In relation to entries 16-23, being chiefs recognised during the years 1989-95 by Chief Herald Donal Begley and/or then Deputy and now Chief Herald Fergus Gillespie, the pedigrees of all the claimants were clearly not subjected to thorough analysis and checking, access is still being denied to many of the relevant official records, and there are inadequate or no published versions of the pedigrees. Reprehensible as was the recognition by the Office of the Chief Herald of the bogus chief Terence MacCarthy 'Mór', other recognitions were also perverse, especially that of MacCarthy's grand-uncle 'Maguire of Fermanagh'. It should be noted that the title of O Neill Mór is claimed by Carlos O'Neill, Marques de la Granja, who resides in Spain, but he does not appear to have applied for recognition to the Office of the Chief Herald. In line with the above mentioned decision, the Chief Herald has now ceased to consider the following applications for courtesy recognition as chiefs: Mac Lochlainn, Mac Sweeney Doe, O Dowda and O Hara and O Meehan. The claimant to the title of Mac Sweeney Doe sets forth his case on his website at http://www.sweeneydoeclan.com/, but as it rests essentially on an undocumented sloinneadh or orally transmitted pedigree it cannot be said to succeed.

Unfortunately, despite the present writer's carefully researched work being now a number of years on the record, the latter and other bogus and questionable chiefs have continued to be presented as genuine. Two books dealing with Irish chiefs have also been published recently, Anne Chambers's At Arm's Length, and Walter Curley's Vanishing Kingdoms, but it could not be said that either pays sufficiently close attention to the genealogical evidence or lack thereof in relation to claims to chiefship. For example, Chambers asserts that the Mac Sweeney Doe claim was validated in 2003 (page 6), while Curley describes the Maguire of Fermanagh claimant as 'intellectually precise and scholarly' and possessing 'a fund of historical knowledge' (page 75). Of course there are many prominent historical chiefships for which there are no current claimants, for example, Mac Grath, Mac Mahon, Mac Namara, O Byrne, O Connell, O Daly, O Flaherty, O Sullivan, and the destruction and dispersal of the Gaelic aristocracy and loss of historical records make it very unlikely that valid claims will ever be made for the bulk of these. Finally, it should be noted that the 'Register of Irish Clans' at http://www.theclansofireland.ie/register.html#S is a listing of modern and largely convivial associations whose chiefs or heads are almost entirely elected and purely honorary in status.

(A)  Recognitions 1944-45, Properly Verified

1 Mac Dermot, Prince of Coolavin, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Roderick (Rory) Charles McDermot of Dublin.

2 Mac Gillycuddy of the Reeks, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Dermot Patrick Donogh McGillycuddy of Northamptonshire.

3 O Callaghan, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Juan O'Callaghan of Barcelona.

4 O Conor Don, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Desmond Roderic O'Conor of Sussex.

5 O Donoghue of the Glen or Glens, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Geoffrey Paul Vincent O'Donoghue of Offaly.

6 O Donovan, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder (Morgan Gerald) Daniel O'Donovan of Cork.

7 O Morchoe, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder David Nial Creagh O'Morchoe of Wexford.

8 O Neill of Clannaboy, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Hugo O'Neill of Portugal.

9 The Fox, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder John William Fox of Australia.

10 O Toole of Fer Tire, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, title currently dormant.

11 O Grady of Kilballyowen, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Henry Thomas Standish O'Grady of London.

12 O Kelly of Gallagh and Tycooly, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Walter Lionel O'Kelly of Dublin.

13 O Brien of Thomond, recognised 1944 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Sir Conor Myles John O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin, of Clare.

14 Mac Morrough Kavanagh, recognised 1945 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, title formerly declared to be dormant, but after the rediscovery of 'missing' correspondence in 2000, the current holder William Butler Kavanagh of Wales was belatedly acknowledged.

15 O Donnell of Tirconnell, recognised 1945 by Chief Herald MacLysaght, current holder Fr Hugh O'Donnell OFM of Zimbabwe.

(B) Recognitions 1989-95, Unverified, Bogus or Questionable

16 O Doherty of Inishowen, recognised c1990 by Chief Herald Begley, current claimant Ramón O'Dogherty of Spain; although there are fairly persuasive secondary published pedigrees and this is the least questionable of the post-1989 recognitions, primary documentation to validate the holder's right to the title is still being sought (writer's interim report of 25 April 2001); the official file remains closed.

17 O Long of Garranelongy, recognised 1989 by Chief Herald Begley, current claimant Denis C Long of Cork; no documentary evidence has been found to prove the claim to chiefship (writer's report of 26 April 2000); the official file remains closed, but crucial documents are stated to be 'missing'.

18 Maguire of Fermanagh, recognised 1991 by Chief Herald Begley, claimant Terence J Maguire of Dublin, a grand-uncle of Terence MacCarthy below, died 19 February 2005; there is no documentary evidence whatsoever to support the claim to chiefship, only 'the tradition of the family' (writer's report of 9 September 1999); counter claims to the chiefship were submitted by Hugh A McGuire of New Zealand and Robert C Maguire of South Carolina; the official file remains closed, but its contents are said to be minimal, with the possibility that key documents have again gone 'missing'.

19 Mac Carthy Mór, recognised 1992 by Chief Herald Begley and Deputy Chief Herald Gillespie, despite objections (relevant correspondence now 'missing'); recognition withdrawn from Terence MacCarthy of Morocco in July 1999 following public exposure of the falsity of his claims (writer's report of 16 June 1999); a counter-claim was submitted by Barry Trant MacCarthy of Wiltshire, a descendant of the earlier self-styled chief Samuel Trant MacCarthy; significant portions of the official files remain closed.

20 O Carroll of Eile O Carroll, recognised 1993 by Chief Herald Begley, current claimant Frederick J O'Carroll of California; there are questions concerning the validity of the recognition of this chief (writer's interim report of 25 April 2001), and primary documentation to validate the holder's right to the title has yet to be produced; the official file remains closed.

21 O Rourke of Breifne, recognised 1993 by Deputy Chief Herald Gillespie, current claimant Geoffrey P C O'Rorke of London, who does not appear to be the senior male descendant of the last inaugurated chief, and therefore should not have been recognised (writer's interim report of 25 April 2001); the official file remains closed.

22 Mac Donnell of the Glens, recognised 1995 by Chief Herald Begley, current claimant Randal McDonnell of Dublin, who again is not the senior representative of his family and therefore should not have been recognised as chief (writer's interim report of 25 April 2001); the official file remains closed.

23 Joyce of Joyce Country, although never registered as a recognised chief, the current claimant John Joyce of Clare, was introduced as such to President Robinson by Chief Herald Begley in 1991, and his banner fromerly hung with those of other chiefs in the State Heraldic Museum; no official file appears to exist and pedigree information is not forthcoming.

"The use of the word 'The' as a prefix to a surname to indicate that the user is the head or chief of a sept comprising the bearers of that name is a comparatively modern practice, but the existence of the chieftaincies so denoted makes an examination of its historical background essential.

To understand this one must glance back to the early mediaeval period when Ireland was administered by one legal system viz. the Brehon Code, Brehon being a word formed from the Irish "breitheamhan", the genitive of "breitheamh", meaning lawgiver or judge. That profession was of great importance and was usually the prerogative of certain families such as the MacClancys for the O'Brien dynasty and the well-known O'Dorans of Leinster. The Brehon Code differed in some essentials from the feudal system which obtained in western Europe. A class system, with degrees of status strictly laid down, was basic to it, but the idea of nobility as deriving from royal prerogative was absent, and so, as we will see later, was the concept of primogeniture. Briefly, the position was as follows.

There were more than a hundred petty 'kingdoms' in the country, that is to say their rulers were termed "Rí", the Irish word for king. They were in most cases no more than chiefs who were subject to overlords, to whom they paid tribute in the form of cattle, corn etc., and, in most cases, were liable to supply a certain number of armed men to assist the overlord when he was engaged in warfare with some other, usually neighbouring, "Rí". The titular position of  "Árd-Rí" (High King) was, generally speaking, more or less nominal. For much of the period under review the 'kings' of the northern half of the country ("Leath Cuinn") recognised the hegemony of that O'Neill who was based on Tara and those of the southern half ("Leath Mogha") the "Rí" who happened to be in power at Cashel. When one refers to an O'Neill or a MacCarthy in this connection it is necessary to remember that surnames of the hereditary type did not come into being until the tenth century, and not widely until later. Thus the collective term "Uí Néill" denotes descendants of an ancestor named Niall. At one time the King of Connacht (Connaught), O Conor, was paramount. The set-up of that kingship, whether as "Árd-Rí" or provincial king, may be taken as illustrating the position. The four provincial chiefs ranking as 'royal lords' under the O Conor Don, giving here the modern form of their names, were:           O Mulrennan, O Finaghty, O Flanagan and MacGeraghty. Lesser chiefs associated with O Conor Don had traditional functions in his service. That these were of importance is clear from the inclusion of O Kelly (steward of the jewels), O Malley (naval), MacDermot (military) and    O Mulconry (chief poet). Actually the term "Árd-Rí" does not appear in the early Brehon law tracts which specify three grades of king, viz., (1) of the local "tuath" or tribal kingdom (2) of a larger territory and overlord of No. 1, (3) king of a province. Although the genealogists trace the high-kingship back to "Niall na naoi ngiallach" (referred to in English as Niall of the Nine Hostages) in the fifth century, it did not become an actuality until much later, and even such successful high-kings as Brian Boru (d. 1014), who stands 45th in their list, were far from exercising the undisputed authority associated with most monarchs in France and England. The effective kingship or principal overlordship was that of the "righte" of what were called the "Cúig Cúigi", i.e. five fifths or provinces, Connacht, Leinster, Meath, Munster and Ulster (to use the modern names) which in fact became seven due to the rise of Oriel and the further division of Ulster into two.As might be expected, with so many semi-independent chieftainries, sporadic warfare was frequent and it sometimes occurred within the "tuath" or mini-state itself. I avoid the word 'tribe' to translate "tuath" as it has connotations foreign to its use in this connection. In cases of that kind, fighting usually arose from the existence of rival claimants to succession after the death of the head of the group concerned. One of the main differences between the Brehon system and the feudal system was the non-existence of the principle of primogeniture in the former. The heir could be any one of the males comprised in the "deirbhfhine", i.e. the descendants of a deceased chief to the fourth generation. The method of election varied. Tanistry, by which the heir or "t[EJG1]áiniste" was chosen in the lifetime of the chief, was later introduced, but even so such disputes were by no means eliminated. However, it is not relevant here to explain the complicated rules which governed succession to the leadership in the various grades of social status. All were meticulously laid down in the written Brehon Code. These minor wars had little effect on the cultural development of the country over a period of five or six hundred years before the coming of the Cambro-Normans in 1169. Poetry, art and genealogy flourished and missionary expeditions helped to keep Christianity alive in other countries where it had been threatened by the Goths and other marauders from northern Europe. Even the frequent incursions of the Norsemen (the DOYLES!), which caused much destruction especially to monastic buildings and treasures, did not at all affect the social system of Gaelic Ireland. The Norsemen, however, were responsible for one innovation in a community which was essentially rural, viz. the establishment of towns, as they founded several, notably Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick. The introduction of this foreign element in the population - not throughout the country but in isolated coastal settlements - did little to unite the Irish kingdoms in opposition to it: in the famous battle of Clontarf, in which in 1014 the Irish forces under Brian Boru finally ended any hope the Norsemen had of dominating the country, it is to be remembered that some Irish septs actually fought on the Norse side against their own "Árd-Rí".Brian Boru (i.e. "Boroimhe" - of the tributes) was the first man of any lineage other than O Neill or O Conor to become High-King, and this position was obtained by force. His race, the "Dál Cais", were originally a comparatively small population group located in Thomond ("Tuadh Mhumhain", north Munster), mainly the present county of Clare.

Up to 1169, while predatory expeditions had from time to time been made by Irish raiders in Wales and even England, Ireland had seldom if ever been subjected to incursions by English forces. It was an Irish king, Dermot MacMurrough of Leinster, who was responsible for what was indeed a turning point in the history of the country, when he sought and obtained the aid of Henry II of England in his own struggle for the retention of his Leinster kingdom - it resulted in the invasion under Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, and the subsequent permanent settlement of the Norman element in Ireland. These twelfth century invaders, it should be remembered, were French-speaking Cambro-Normans from Wales.Their coming heralded the first significant change in the composition of the aristocracy in Ireland. Henry II of England, with the imprimatur of Pope Adrian IV (the only Englishman ever to become Pope), assumed the title of Lord of   Ireland and many of the heads of the Irish states, regarding it as no more than a formality, acquiesced in this and continued to carry on as they had done previously. The high-kingship, however, was at an end: the last of their line was Ruaidhri Ó Conchobhair (Rory O Connor) who died in 1189.The Norman element thus introduced became possessed of vast landed estates in various parts of the country - less in Ulster than elsewhere - but by a gradual process they became part of the Irish nation (though of course the modern concept of nationality was then as yet unthought of). This process was threefold. Some became completely integrated, giving rise to the well known phrase 'Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis' (more Irish than the Irish themselves). These formed septs on the Gaelic-Irish pattern, headed by a chief. Thus, the head of the Norman family of Wall in Co. Limerick was known as "An Fáltach" (The Wall) and the head of the Condons "An Condúnach" (The Condon). Other families in this category were, inter alios, the Mandevilles who became MacQuillan, The Archdeacons Cody, the Berminghams Corish and the Nangles Costello. With the submergence of the Gaelic order in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries they suffered the same fate as the indigenous septs.

Other great families which did not go so far as to adopt the Brehon system nevertheless became essentially Irish and were unaffected by the Statutes of Kilkenny (1367) which vainly sought to prevent the descendants of the Norman invaders from dressing and riding in the Irish fashion or speaking the Irish language. To name the most notable of the Hiberno-Norman families, such as Barry, Dillon, de Lacy, Plunkett, Power, Prendergast and Roche would inevitably result in omitting some of equal importance, but I think it would be generally agreed that Fitzgerald, Butler and Burke were the most important.

There were two main branches of the Fitzgeralds, the head of both of which bore titles of nobility (Earls of Desmond and of Kildare) conferred on them by the King of England as Lord of Ireland. The Desmond branch were responsible in 1582 for the main Irish revolt against the extension of English power which resulted in defeat and the devastation of much of Munster. Apart from the earldom, there were two other hereditary titles borne by the Fitzgeralds of Kerry and Limerick, conferred in the fourteenth century, not by the King of England but by his representative in Ireland, which are unique and are still extent and fully recognised, viz., the Knight of Kerry and the Knight of Glin. The Fitzgeralds of Desmond ("Deas Mhumhain", South Munster) eventually conformed and were prominent in the aristocracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Kildare branch found no difficulty in acknowledging the English sovereign's overlord ship. One of them, Garret Fitzgerald, 9th Earl of Kildare, became the viceroy of Henry VIII (the first English sovereign to be styled King, rather than Lord, of Ireland). So powerful did he become in that capacity that he was deemed a threat to royal supremacy in Ireland. Summoned to London, he languished in captivity till his death and his son, known as Silken Thomas, renounced his allegiance, went into rebellion and was eventually in 1537 executed in London with no less than five of his uncles. The family, however, was not thus entirely annihilated and later on regained their position as a leading one in the nobility of Ireland and, having become Dukes of Leinster, they occupied their mansion at Carton in Co. Kildare until quite recent times.

A third category are typified by the Butlers of Ormond (Co. Kilkenny and east Tipperary) whose titles (finally Marquis of Ormond) were equally the creation of an English monarch. While they made no attempt to become integrated, they perforce became Irish in many ways - in speaking the Irish language for example: one of them acted as interpreter at the Parliament of 1541 which was attended by the Irish-speaking chiefs as well as the English faction. For the most part, the Butlers regarded themselves as representing that section of the population having historical ties with England but distinct from the English people. To give a fair picture of them, it should be added that a number of individual Butlers are to be found in accounts of pro-Catholic activities and in the ranks of the 'Wild Geese' which will be dealt with later.

At this point it would, I think, be appropriate to refer to those prominent immigrant families who had no connection with the Cambro- or Anglo-Normans and did not come to Ireland till the sixteenth century, such as the Bagenals, Edgeworths, Fleetwoods, Goldsmiths, Gwynns, Sigersons and Springs, to mention some of them. Perhaps the most remarkable of these were the Brownes. For the moment I am not referring to the Brownes of Camus, Co. Limerick, of whom were the famous Maximilian Ulysses Browne and other prominent 'Wild Geese', nor to those who in Connacht (Connaught) got the title Oranmore, nor again the Brownes who were one of the 'Tribes of Galway'. Those I have in mind are the Brownes of Kerry, Earls of Kenmare. They started as intrusive foreigners but following intermarriage with the O'Sullivans, MacCarthys and other great Gaelic families of the area, they became before long uncompromising Catholics and suffered in their turn as such, though by reason of unusual circumstances related in The Kenmare Manuscripts regained and retained their vast estates in Counties Kerry and Limerick up to our own times. They, however, were never prominent in the political arena. Unlike the Brownes of Kerry, most of this class conformed at the Reformation and constituted a not inconsiderable element in the Anglo-Irish gentry of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This category were in the seventeenth century termed the New-English to distinguish them from the descendants of earlier invaders and settlers who had become hibernicised and espoused the Catholic cause in the wars of Cromwell and William of Orange. These were termed the Old-English.

Let us now consider the great Gaelic-Irish families and take Connacht (Connaught) as an example of the lordships of a province which had to a considerable extent fallen under the domination of Cambro-Norman invaders in the earlier period, these, however, having become hibernicised. Typical of the less important of these were the Nangles (de Angulo) who adopted the name "MacOisdealbhaigh" (modern Costello), incidentally the first non-Gaelic surname to use the Gaelic prefix Mac. At that time, Connacht (Connaught) included the modern county of Clare (Thomond) now in Munster, and much of Breifni (Co. Cavan usually reckoned in Ulster. The families constituting these Lordships were, according to the "Anála Locha Cé", Ó Ceallaigh (O Kelly) of Uí Maine, Ó Conchobhair (O Conor) in its three branches - Don ("donn", brown) Roe ("ruadh", red) and Sligo - MacDiarmada (MacDermot) of Moylurg, Ó Ruairc (O Rourke) of Breifni, Ó hEaghra (O Hara) of Leyney, Ó Dubhda (O Dowd) of Tireragh, Ó Flaithbheartaigh (O Flaherty) of Connemara and Ó Briain (O Brien) of Thomond, together with the three powerful branches of the de Burghs (Burke) - MacWilliam Iochtar, MacWilliam Uachtar and the Earl of Clanrickard, whose family were not so much hibernicised as the other Burkes of Connacht (Connaught).

It would be helpful in presenting a picture of the Chieftainries in Ireland briefly to take one of those old Gaelic families as an illustration, and for that purpose the O'Briens of Thomond would be suitable because they were to some extent of divided allegiance. The lineal descendants of Brian Boru were hostile to the early invaders: Donal O'Brien, King of Munster, with his Dalcassian followers, was a leading figure in the successful battles against Strongbow in l174 and Prince John in 1185. They retained the designation, King of Thomond ("Tuadh Mhumhain", north Munster) and often King of all Munster, until 1543 when Morrough O Brien surrendered his 'captaincy and principality' to Henry VIII who, in accordance with the principle of 'surrender and regrant' created him Earl of Thomond. It may be noted that in the deeds conferring titles on chiefs who accepted that principle, the recipient was almost always referred to as 'chief of his name' or 'captain of his nation'. Murrough O Brien also conformed to the new Protestant religion, accepting Henry VIII instead of the Pope as head of the Church. The main branch were thereafter no longer champions of the Irish cause but, unlike many others similarly circumstanced, they did not become absentees but remained in Co. Clare, with the lesser title of Baron Inchiquin, to end as landlords of the better type. The junior branches, however, produced men who were notable as Irish patriots. Two were on the Supreme Council of the Confederation of Kilkenny (l642) and one of the most renowned regiments in the Irish army of Catholic James II against William of Orange was Clare's Dragoons - Clare being Daniel O'Brien, 3rd Viscount Clare. This regiment later became famous on the Continent and the O Briens in it, together with those who fought in the service of France at Fontenoy and elsewhere, can be counted among the more prominent of the exiles who constituted the 'Wild Geese'.The flight of the Wild Geese began in earnest with the episode known as the 'Flight of the Earls' when Hugh O Neill (Earl of Tyrone) and Hugh Roe O Donnell (Earl of Tyrconnell) took ship with 99 other leading Ulster Gaels, going first to Flanders and then to Rome where the two great chiefs died. However, they left sons who, while remaining exiles, kept in touch with their own country.

From the beginning of the seventeenth century, the history of Ireland has been overshadowed by its religious or rather its denominational aspect. Up to that time, Ulster had been the most basically Irish part of Ireland, less affected than any other province by subversive incursions. The O Neills and O Donnells had maintained their real independence (even though they did accept titles of nobility from the English crown). Then, in spite of a remarkable victory over the English at the battle of the Yellow Ford in 1596, their defeat six years later at Kinsale, the last and conclusive battle of that campaign, resulted in the aforementioned 'Flight of the Earls', the confiscation of their estates and the settlement thereon of Scottish and English settlers, known as the Plantation in Ulster. This 'plantation' differed from the others inflicted on the country in that not only the landowning class was wiped out but the smaller occupiers of land were forced to move from their holdings to patches of unprofitable mountain and boggy land.

Forty years after the destruction of the old order in Ulster came the Cromwellian Transplantation to Connacht (Connaught) and Clare which resulted in the confiscation of the estates of great numbers of Catholic landowners and their settlement in smaller holdings in the West or in many cases their exile. Though it was found impracticable to carry it out with the full severity originally intended, it did amount to a national upheaval and where the victims did not voluntarily find their way to exile in France and other European countries it inevitably resulted in a reduction of their social status in Ireland. This policy had first been attempted in the previous century with the Plantation of Laois and Offaly, then renamed Queen's County and King's County in commemoration of Queen Mary I and her Spanish husband, Philip. Though it caused much temporary disturbance it had little permanent effect on the majority of the inhabitants; and two chiefs concerned, O More and O Conor Faly never submitted, but the latter died and the O Mores went to Co. Kerry where they sank to minor importance.

The third war of the seventeenth century was fought between James II and William of Orange for the crown of England, and nominally of Ireland too. Patrick Sarsfield's heroic exploits, after James II had fled to France following his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, secured the just Treaty of Limerick. Limerick was long called the 'city of the broken treaty' because its terms were not kept by England, and the enactment soon after of the very severe anti-Catholic Penal Laws completed the debacle. So Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, and his men became yet another major contingent of the 'Wild Geese'.

The overall position is thus concisely presented by Stephen Gwynn in his History of Ireland (p. 327) where he says 'what happened in the seventeenth century was not merely the transfer of property from certain persons to others', nor even the penalising of one religion which was that of the vast majority, and endowing that of a minority at the general expense. It was the destruction of a ruling class in a country which was still aristocratic; it was depriving Ireland of its natural leaders - that is of those leaders whom Ireland willingly recognised'. Literally hundreds of thousands of Irish men went to Europe, mainly to France, in the century and a half between the Cromwellian war in Ireland and the French Revolution; however, we are concerned here with the chiefs, not with the great majority who were of lesser rank, many of whom became officers of distinction in the armies of France, Spain and Austria.

We have now to consider the present Irish 'Chiefs of the Name'. The question of these titles, or rather designations, has already been discussed in one of the introductory articles in Burke's Irish Family Records (1976) where it was stated that those set out below are officially recognised as authentic, their descent by primogeniture from the last formally inaugurated chief having been exhaustively researched by the Genealogical Office, formerly the Office of Arms. That institution, which was founded in 1552, became during the period of the Union (1800-1921), a British Government office, and so did not recognise the Irish chieftaincies except in one case : in 1900 O Connor Don was granted supporters and at the coronation of Edward VII he was officially appointed to carry the standard of Ireland in the ceremonies on that occasion.

The last official statement of authentic chiefs was made in l956. It has been brought up to date in a work entitled The Irish Chiefs by C. Eugene Swezey (New York, 1974) where information regarding present addresses, heirs, arms etc., will be found. In that work the prefix 'The' before the surname is given because it has long been used in English to designate them (as it was in Irish in the case of hibernicised Norman septs). In their signatures, however, the surname alone is used without Christian name.

Briefly those now officially recognised are:

O Conor Don
O Neill of Clanaboy
O'Brien of Thomond
Fox (An Sionnach)
O Callaghan
MacGillycuddy of the Reeks
O Grady of Kilballyowen
MacDermot of Coolavin
O Kelly of Gallagh
MacDermot Roe
O Morchoe
O Donell of Tirconnell
MacMorrough Kavanagh
O Donoghue of the Glens
O Donovan
O Toole of Fir Tire
O Carroll
McDonnell of the Glens

Before the final submergence of the Brehon system there were, needless to say, many more recognised chiefs than the sixteen listed above who have actually substantiated their claim in recent times. Sixteenth century sources, such as the State Papers and the Fiants, show that, apart from the hibernicised Norman families already mentioned, the heads of the following families were there referred to as chiefs: MacArtan (now MacCartan), MacAuliffe, MacAuley, MacClancy, MacCarthy Mór, MacCarthy Reagh, MacCoghlan, MacDonagh, MacGeoghegan, MacGilpatrick (Fitzpatrick), MacGorman, MacGrath, MacGuinness, MacGuire, MacKenna, MacKiernan, MacKinnane (Ford), MacLoughlin, MacMahon, MacManus, MacNamara, MacRory, O Beirne, O Boyle (no connection with the English name Boyle, borne by the Earl of Cork), O Brennan, O Byrne, O Cahan (Kane), O Carroll, O Clery, O Connell, O Connolly, O Conor Faly, O Conor Roe, O Conor Sligo, O Daly, O Dempsey, O Devlin, O Doherty, O Dowd, O Doyle, O Driscoll, O Dunn, O Dwyer, O Farrell, O Flaherty, O Folane, O Gara, O Hagan, O Hanlon, O Hara, O Heyne, O Keeffe, O Kennedy, O Loughlin, O Madden, O Mahony, O Malley, O Mannin, O Melaghlin, O Molloy, O More, O Mulryan (Ryan), O Mulvey, O Nolan, O Phelan, O Reilly, O Rourke, O Shaughnessy, O Sheridan, O Sullivan Beare, O Sullivan Mór."

Brehon Law - From Gaelic breitheamh, 'judge', pronounced 'bre-hev', the body of ancient native law which was generally operational in Gaelic areas until the completion of the English conquest of Ireland in the early seventeenth century, and which applied also in Gaelic Scotland (the Scottish term 'brieve' is equivalent to 'brehon').

Chief - In Gaelic taoiseach, the head of a ruling kingroup, pronounced 'tee-shok' (the actual term taoiseach does not appear to have been widely used in Brehon Law tracts, and of course is most familiar today from its use to denote the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland).

Clan - From Gaelic clann, 'family, 'pronounced 'clown' or 'clon', in Scottish usage an anglicised term referring to a dominant ruling kingroup, employed by social anthropologists to denote a lineage-based group, but also used generally in a non-technical sense to mean any powerful family group, and in Ireland to denote a Scottish-influenced convivial association of individuals bearing a common surname.

Courtesy Recognition - A form of recognition of Gaelic Chiefs devised by Edward MacLysaght, first Chief Herald of Ireland, which was designed to accord with the constitutional bar on formal acknowledgement of aristocratic titles, and to provide a system of validation to counter the recurring problem of bogus and questionable Chiefs.

Derbfine - Gaelic, 'true kin', pronounced 'der-vi-nah', the kingroup composed of the male descendants of a common great-grandfather, which possessed important legal powers relating to its members' affairs, the control of kin-land and the election of the head of kin.

Primogeniture - The system, employed in England and elsewhere, under which the eldest son, or in default of same, the senior living male relative, succeeds to a title (a qualified system exists in European monarchies whereby the eldest daughter can succeed where there is no son, and indeed a number of Scottish Chiefs are female).

Sept - Possibly from Gaelic sliocht, 'offspring', pronounced 'slucht', in Irish usage an anglicised term referring to a dominant ruling kingroup (unconnected Irish kingroups could bear the same name, eg, there are multiple unrelated septs of Murphy, O'Connor, O'Kelly, etc, and a distinction should be made with regard to the Scottish 'clan system', where indeed 'sept' is used to denote a subdivision of a clan).

Tanistry - From Gaelic tánaiste, 'heir', pronounced 'taw-nish-te', the system under which a successor to a Chief was chosen in his lifetime by the derbfine ('The Case of Tanistry', 1608, actually focusses on succession to property rather than a title, and continues to be cited in legal cases internationally, particularly those relating to native land rights).

Tuath - Gaelic, a petty or tribal kingdom, pronounced 'tua', plural tuatha, pronounced 'tua-ha', of which there were approximately 150 in ancient Ireland.