Please Note: Darren is no longer accepting genealogical commissions on this website.

However, I am keeping this website up to promote my books and the history of my McGettigan family. I also hope to have a new book published soon.

There is also a year's worth of genealogy blog entries on my website ~ feel free to explore them ~ I enjoyed writing them and they were quite popular.

Christmas Irish Genealogy Blog 2011 by Dr Darren McGettigan of Family History Ireland

When I posted earlier this week on my Facebook page that I would try and write a Christmas themed blog this week, one of my readers suggested that I write about the Christmas traditions of the Gaelic Irish around the year 1602. Unfortunately, it is sad to say that very few writers at the time recorded any cultural Christmas traditions of the ordinary people of the Gaelic lordships. Perhaps such evidence has survived and I just havn't found it yet.

Some evidence of Christmas in Gaelic Ireland for the years 1600 to 1602, which was the time of the end of the Nine Years War (1594 - 1603), has survived however, in relation to the O'Molloy chieftain, Calvagh O'Molloy, who was the Gaelic lord of the territory of Fircall, a small Gaelic lordship in the Irish midlands, which is now part of the modern Irish county of Offaly. Calvagh O'Molloy became lord of Fircall in the spring of the year 1599 when his father, Conal O'Molloy, Lord of Fircall died. The Annals of the Four Masters record that Calvagh was appointed Lord of Fircall by Queen Elizabeth I, although 'Some of the gentlemen of his tribe vied and contended with him (according to the custom of the Irish), for that name'.

Calvagh O'Molloy appears to have been a decent man, who tried to keep his lordship and family out of the major war being fought on the island of Ireland, between the English army of Queen Elizabeth and the forces of the Ulster chieftains, Hugh O'Neill, the lord of Tyrone, and Red Hugh O'Donnell, the lord of Tír Chonaill, who were determined to preserve their autonomy and perhaps drive English influence out of Ireland for good. However, try as he might, Calvagh O'Molloy could not keep the war out of Fircall. In the Spring of 1599, Hugh O'Neill sent his son Conn into the region 'to ascertain who they were that were firm in their friendship and promises to O'Neill and the Irish'. One of O'Molloy's neighbours, O'Carroll Lord of Ely treacherously killed a company of Hugh O'Neill's mercenaries in the winter of 1599, which led Hugh O'Neill himself to march through Fircall in January 1600 on his famous expedition to Munster. Hugh O'Neill spent nine nights in the Fircall region and he did not leave until he had plundered Ely O'Carroll in revenge for his murdered soldiers and until 'the people of Fircall, of Upper Leinster, and Westmeath, made full submission to him, and formed a league of friendship with him'. Later on in 1600 as the war turned against the Irish, the English army reconquered Laois and Offaly. However, war returned to Fircall in the winter of 1601 as Red Hugh O'Donnell passed through the territory on his epic march to Kinsale.

Not surprisingly all this warfare and the to-ing and fro-ing of so many opposing armies through the Fircall region had a terrible impact on the local population. One of the family, a Franciscan friar Francis O'Molloy, later wrote that 'the kingdom of Ireland was devastated with famine, fire and sword, and in the utmost dearth of provisions, in Queen Elizabeth's time'. However, Father O'Molloy also records that Calvagh O'Molloy, concerned for the welfare and possibly the very survival of his followers 'invited to his house nine hundred and sixty persons for the feast of Christmas, entertained them there for the space of twleve days'. This was a remarkably generous deed by the O'Molloy chieftain, which was probably inspired by some of the famous 'invitations' issued by a number of prominent Gaelic Irish chieftains in late medieval times. O'Molloy's Christmas feast was probably not unique in Gaelic Ireland during the Nine Years War but it is the only one that I am aware of. The feast I think illustrates the concern some Gaelic Irish chieftains had for the own family and followers and also their attitude to war and famine relief. However, Calvagh O'Molloy's Christmas feast must have been unusually generous. A stanza of bardic poetry was also written to commemorate his very generous deed. Translated from Irish it reads:

  'Thrice three hundred and three score -Tale unheard by thee before - Feasted free in Calvagh's hall - Caring light what might befall'.

Hope you enjoyed my Christmas blog. Have a great Christmas and New Years everyone. Next blog 2012! 

Irish Genealogy blog by Dr Darren McGettigan of Family History Ireland

My last blog was written about the decline in fortunes of some Cenél nEógain families, left behind in the Inishowen peninsula as the power of the O'Neill Kings of Tyrone contracted to east of the Foyle River. This week, as promised, the distribution of power in Inishowen in the year 1602, as the period of autonomy in Gaelic Ulster was just about to end.

In the Elizabethan Fiants, under the year 1602, there is recorded a 'Pardon to the following persons of Inishowen in the province of Ulster'. The pardon contains a list of many hundreds of names, headed by Cahir O'Doherty, the young Gaelic lord of the peninsula, and dates from 5 June 1602. This list is of great interest to genealogists and also to early modern historians, as it records how political power was then distributed in 1602 among the inhabitants of Inishowen.

Readers of my last blog may remember that I disucssed the history of two prominent Cenél nEógain families who inhabited the north-west and north-east of the Inishowen peninsula in late medieval times ~ the Ó Maolfhábhail and Ó Duibhdhíorma families. So how did these two families fare in 1602? The 1602 list records prominent and powerful Gaelic nobles. A number of Ó Duibhdhíormas are listed, including an Eoghan Ó Duibhdhíorma and a Tuathal and Tuathal Óg Ó Duibhdhíorma, likely a father and son. However, these men are recorded as individuals, not members of a powerful Gaelic family with a clan territory and castles. However, I was not able to find any members of the Ó Maolfhábhail family at all listed in the pardon, which indicates to me that the family had declined in power by 1602 to such an extent that no members of the family were regarded as any longer noble, although people with the Ó Maolfhábhail surname did continue to live in Inishowen in 1602. However, they must all have been tenant farmers, subject to some other Gaelic lord.

The 1602 pardon list does record however, that the McLoughlin family, which had previously in earlier medieval times ruled as kings of Tyrone, was still recognised as a Gaelic Clan, being referred to as the Clan Loughlin in the pardon list. This list contains a substantial number of McLoughlin nobles, headed by Hugh Carragh McLoughlin, who in other contemporary sources is referred to as the McLoughlin chieftain. The family retained two castles on the shore of Lough Foyle, Red Castle and White Castle, and was obviously regarded as still a powerful family in Inishowen in 1602. The retention of power by the McLoughlin family in part of Inishowen was a substantial achievement, given that the family had been in eclipse ever since the year 1241 AD, when the McLoughlins had suffered a crushing defeat in battle at the hands of the O'Neills of east Tyrone and as a result had lost the kingship of Tyrone for ever. The survival of some McLoughlin power has been overlooked by historians of the early modern period and I think that its survival should be more recognised.

However, the 1602 pardon list also demonstrates that most power and control of almost all of the peninsula rested with the dominant O'Doherty family, which as I indicated in my last blog was of Cenél Conaill origin. As I have already stated the first name on the list is that of Cahir O'Doherty, in 1602 the Gaelic lord of Inishowen. In the list of hundreds of names which follow, most appear to be people with the O'Doherty surname. The pardon list breaks the O'Doherty family up into numerous distinct sub-family units. The 1602 list refers to 'the race of Brian O'Doherty', 'the race of the O'Dohertys called Bressalie', 'the race of Felim O'Doherty' and 'the race of Donal of the O'Dohertys'. The local historian and talented artist Seoirse Ó Dochartaign has produced a beautifully illustrated book called 'Seacht Sliocht Uí Dhochartaigh Inis Eoghain ~ The Seven Races of Inishowen O'Doherty',which attempts to make sense of the tangled O'Doherty family tree. There is certainly a thesis or book there for someone who has the few months needed I think to familiarise oneself with the many O'Doherty sub-families which held most of the land in Inishowen in June 1602.

The 1602 list also records some other families which had some power in Inishowen at the time, including the 'Clan David' ~ the McDaids, a prominent family descended from a medieval chieftain called David O'Doherty, which had branched off from the O'Dohertys at an early stage, and the 'Clan M'Gillachomhaill', and the O'Morrison families who were probably of Cénel nEógain origin, and many members of the O'Shiel family who probably were not.

I hope my readers have enjoyed this week's blog, as I think it shows how not only could the vast majority of land-onwership in one small part of Gaelic Ireland, totally change over the course of two and half centuries, but hand in hand with this process, a still substantial element of the original pre-existing population could retain its land and some of its political power. Very little of this process is recorded in the annals. A lot does appear to have been recorded in this type of genealogocial material. The difficulty is in finding and then interpreting it.   

Donegal people sometimes have heated debates about officially changing the name of their county to Tír Chonaill. Many inhabitants of the county who are very proud of their local history wonder why the name is not easily changed while others, probably a minority (but a sizeable one), point out that the peninsula of Inishowen and the flat lands around Lifford were not part of historical Tír Chonaill and so the county name should remain Donegal. The answer to this question is that both arguments are correct, depending on what period of history people are interested in. In medieval times up until around the year 1350 AD Inishowen and the plains to the south were actually part of the lordship of Tyrone. Inisowen (from Irish Inis Eógain or Eoghan's Island), was actually the original territory of the Cenél nEógain people before they struck out across Lough Foyle in medieval times to gradually conquer the modern counties of Derry, Tyrone and Armagh from the original Ulster people who were dispossessed and corralled east of Lough Neagh and the river Bann. However, after the year 1350 the Cenél Conaill family of O'Doherty conquered the Inishowen peninsula and as sub-cheiftains of the O'Donnell lords of Tír Chonaill, the Inishowen peninsula did indeed become an integral part of the early modern lordship of Tír Chonaill. As an early modern historian I would naturally enough like the county name to be changed to Tír Chonaill, but can understand why others prefer things to stay as they were, although I do think these people like to conveniently ignore the O'Doherty conquest of Inishowen for the Cenél Conaill.

Weekly Genealogy Blog by Dr Darren McGettigan

After a short break it is good to be back with my weekly Genealogy Blog.