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The
O'NEILL Family of Co. Cork, Ireland
Family of Co. Cork, Ireland
early C19th to present day.
Data
Download
Browse this
file to see whether you are connected to my wife's family - this
was as far as her late father's research got. The file contains
trees of descendant families of family names other than O'NEILL
and also descendant O'NEILL families in Airdrie, Scotland.
(Contact: Paul O'NEILL)
Related Cork families include:
McCARTHY, MURPHY, COLLINS,
MINNIS, WALSH, O'REGAN, O'SULLIVAN,
O'LEARY, O'DONOVAN, CROWLEY, &
HENDRIE
(Please note: This research is
inherited from my late father-in-law only.)
Other
Researchers & Links:
Extracted
Historical Notes:
"The O'NEILLs of Thomond
were chiefs of a territory in the modern barony of Bunratty:
today O'Neill is not a common name in Co. Clare, but the Nihills
and the Creaghs of that county claim to be of Thomond O'Neill is
quite numerous in and around Co. Carlow, where an O'Neill sept
was situated in the barony of Rathvilly. Another O'Neill sept was
located in the Decises and its present day representatives are
found in Co. Waterford and south Tipperary.
The first of the great Ulster
sept to bear the surname O'Neill was Donell O'Neill, the
eponymous ancestor being his grandfather Niall, King of Ireland,
who was killed in a battle with the Norsemen in A.D. 919, not, as
might be supposed, the famous Niall of the Nine Hostages*, though
that somewhat legendary and heroic character was also a remote
ancestor. From that time until the end of the seventeenth
century, when Ulster ceased to be the leading Gaelic province of
Ireland the O'NEILLs figure prominently among the great men of
Irish history. The O'NEILLs were the chief family of the Cinel
Eoghan, their territory being Tir Eoghan. Tir Eoghan (modern
Tyrone) in early times comprised not only that county but most of
Derry and part of Donegal. Down to the time of Brain Boru, who
reigned from 1002 to 1014, the Ui Neill, as those who established
themselves in Meath were called. The latter did in fact occupy
also part of southern Ulster contiguous with Meath. In the
fourteenth century a branch of the Tyrone O'NEILLs migrated to
Antrim where they became known as Clann Aodha Bhuidhe, from Aodh
Buidhe (or Hugh Boy) O'Neill, who was slain in 1283, the term
being perpetuated in the territorial name Clannaboy or Clandeboy.
The attempts made by the
English in the sixteenth century to exterminate them, which were
carried out by Essex and others with a ferocity and perfidy
seldom equalled even in that violent age, were unsuccessful, and
O'NEILLs are numerous there to-day, as they are also in West
Ulster.
The sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries produced the most famous of the O'NEILLs: among them
Con Bacach O'Neill (1484-1559), first Earl of Tyrone; Shane
O'Neill (1530-1567); Hugh O'Neill (1540-1616), second Earl of
Tyrone; Owen roe O'Neill (1590-1649); Sir Phelim O'Neill
(1604-1653); and Hugh O'Neill (d. 1660) - names well known in the
history of Ireland. Less famous but worthy of mention, is Sir
Nial O'Neill (1658-1690), whose regiment of dragoons
distinguished itself at the battle of the Boyne, where he was
mortally wounded. In the century following that disaster many
O'NEILLs were to be found among the outstanding officers of the
Irish Brigades in the French army. Arthur O'Neill (1737-1816),
the blind wandering harper, may be regarded as the precursor of
Bunting in the field of Irish Traditional music; and John O'Neill
(1834-1878), was leader of the Fenian invasion in Canada in 1867.
All these were Ulstermen. The only man of the other septs,
referred to at the beginning of this section, to make much mark
was John O'Neill (c. 1777-c 1860), who began life as a shoemaker
on Co. Waterford, whence he went to London and became a
successful dramatist. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), the American
dramatist was son of the American actor James O'Neill
(1849-1920), who was an Irish emigrant. In that field we may also
mention the actress Peggy O'Neill (1796-1879). It may be remarked
in conclusion that O'Neill is one of the very few surnames the
spelling of which is identical in both Irish and English
languages. In Irish, however, the E is accented."
*recent DNA study (from New
Scientist - 18th January 2006)
Medieval
Irish warlord boasts three million descendants
Up to three million men
around the world could be descended from a prolific medieval
Irish king, according to a new genetic study. It suggests
that the 5th-century warlord known as "Niall
of the Nine Hostages" may be the ancestor of about one
in 12 Irishmen, say researchers at Trinity College Dublin,
Ireland. Niall established a dynasty of powerful chieftains
that dominated the island for six centuries.
In a study of the Y
chromosome - which is only passed down through the male line
- scientists found a hotspot in northwest Ireland where 21.5%
carry Niall’s genetic fingerprint, says Brian McEvoy,
one of the team at Trinity. This was the main powerbase of
the Ui Neills, which literally translated means "descendants
of Niall". McEvoy says the Y chromosome appeared to
trace back to one person. "There are certain surnames
that seem to have come from Ui Neill. We studied if there was
any association between those surnames and the genetic
profile. It is his (Niall's) family."
Enduring
dynasty
The study says that Niall
"resided at the cusp of mythology and history but our
results do seem to confirm the existence of a single early
medieval progenitor to the most powerful and enduring Irish
dynasty". The results also lend support to surviving
genealogical and oral traditions of Gaelic Ireland and are a
"powerful illustration of the potential link between
prolificacy and power".
The study says the
chromosome has also been found in 16.7% of men in western and
central Scotland and has turned up in multiple North American
population samples, including in 2% of European-American New
Yorkers. "Given historically high rates of Irish
emigration to North America and other parts of the world, it
seems likely that the number of descendants worldwide runs to
perhaps two to three million males," the study says.
Modern
surnames
It compares the result
with similar research that suggested that Mongol emperor
Genghis Khan has 16 million descendants after conquering most
of Asia in the 13th century. Though medieval
Ireland was Christian, divorce was allowed, people married
earlier and concubinage was practised. Illegitimate sons were
claimed and their rights protected by law. "As in other
polygynous societies, the siring of offspring was related to
power and prestige." The study points out that one of
the O'Neill dynasty chieftains who died in 1423 had 18 sons
with 10 different women and counted 59 grandsons in the male
line.
Niall of the Nine
Hostages, who became high king of Ireland, got his name from
using the taking of hostages as a strategy for subjugating
his opponent chieftains. He is known in folklore as a raider
of the British and French coasts. Supposedly slain in the
English Channel or in Scotland, his descendants were the most
powerful rulers of Ireland until the 11th century.
Modern surnames tracing their ancestry to Niall include
(O')Neill, (O')Gallagher, (O')Boyle, (O')Doherty, O'Donnell,
Connor, Cannon, Bradley, O'Reilly, Flynn, (Mc)Kee, Campbell,
Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, Hynes, McCaul, McGovern,
McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, O'Kane, O'Rourke and
Quinn.
Journal reference:
American Journal of Human Genetics
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The
outline above is indicative only and not necessarily fully
correct or complete.
The CreativeGraces family tree can be
found here on
Ancestry:
http://trees.ancestry.co.uk/pt/pedigree.aspx?tid=9072976
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