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Irish history and mythology is some of the best
recorded in the world. Because of the work of the
Irish annalists and genealogists we are able to
identify where our ancient forebears may have come
from. Also we are told what their tribal names are
and the names of the septs that developed from those
tribes. MacLysaght describes a sept as 'a collective
term describing a group of persons, who, or whose
immediate and known ancestors, bore a common surname
and inhabited the same locality’. This is
not the same as a Scottish clan, which were differently
constituted, although the word ‘clan’
does tend to be used synonymously with an Irish
sept.
Here is a brief description of the currently
recognized macro tribal history in Ireland. The
annals tell us that the Fir Bolg arrived in the
country before the Milesians. The former, together
with their contemporaries the Fir Domnann, the
Laigin and the Ulaidh, are ethnologically classed
as the Érainn. Tribes of this origin are
prefixed generally with names like Corcu (perhaps
meaning seed of) or ending in ‘aighe’
such as the Ciarraighe (black people) or Osraighe
(deer people). The tribes of the second migration,
the Milesian (the Gaels or Goidels), carry names
like Eóghanachta (descendants of Eoghan)
or Connachta (descendants of Conn).
In these pages the Irish spellings are used.
Ó means basically ‘from’ but
in genealogical terms means ‘grandson or
descendant of’. Uí is the genitive
singular and so Donnchadh Uí Láegairi
means Donogh of the O’Leary tribe/sept or
descendants of Leary. Ua is the genitive plural
and therefore Ua Donnchadha means in its simplest
‘of the Donoghues’. Sometimes one
sees this as Hua Donnchadha. One finds a great
variety of spellings in the old Irish records.
There are eight known O’Donoghue ancient
tribal areas in Ireland. They were in Munster:
Tipperary, Cork/Kerry - Leinster: Kilkenny, Wicklow/Dublin,
Meath, Cavan - Connaught: Galway, Mayo/Sligo.
Considerable migration took place over the centuries
and family groups took root in many other counties
(eg Clare, Limerick, Waterford, Roscommon and
others), which would today be recognized as their
areas of origin.
-Excerpts taken from the The
O’Donoghue Society.
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