PEDIGREE OF THE O DONOVAN

Note:- The original text can be somewhat confused and unclear. Also the spelling of names varies in the original which has been edited here for clarity.

1. EOGHAN TAIDHLEACH, IE, EOGHAN THE SPLENDID, OTHERWISE CALLED MOGH MUADHAT.

He is the great ancestors of the most distinguished families of Munster, and is mentioned in all the authentic Irish annals as the most powerful man in Ireland, next after Con of the Hundred Battles, with whom he contended for the monarchy of all Ireland. Con, however, at length forced him to quit Ireland ; and we are told that he sought an asylum in Spain, where he lived for nine years in exile, during which time he was employed in the king’s army. In the fourth year of his exile, the king gave him his daughter, Beara in marriage. At length he entered into a confederacy with the king, by whose co-operation he was able to land a numerous army of Spaniards in Ireland. He put in at a harbour in the south of Ireland, to which he gave the name of Beara (now Bearhaven) in honour of his wife, and immediately on his landing was joined by his relatives and a numerous body of followers. He defeated Con in ten successive engagements, and compelled him to resign all authority over the southern half of Ireland, over which he (Mogh Naudhat (sic)) was to be king independent of Con.

Eoghan Taidhleach or Mogh Nadhat (sic) had by Beara, his Spanish wife, two sons. First, OILLOLL OLOM, the ancestors of all the subsequent kings of Munster ; and second, Leghaedh Lagha, a champion, much celebrated in Irish stories for his extraordinary strength, valour and prowess.

2. OILLOLL OLUM. – He became king of Leath-mhogha, or the southern half of Ireland, after having conquered Lughaidh Maccon, the ancestors of o Driscoll, in the battle of Ceann Feibhradh Sleibhe Caoin, in the year 237.

3. EOGHAN. – He was the eldest son of OILLOL OLUM, and the brother of Cormac Cas, ancestor of the O Briens of Thomond.

4. FIACHA MUILLEATHAN. – He was declared king of Munster in accordance with the will of his grandfather on the death of his uncle, Cormac Cas, which occurred AD 260

5. OILIOLL FLANBEG. – He was king of Munster for thirty years, and was slain in the battle of Corann by the men of Connaught, aided by Fothadh Conann, son of Maccon, the ancestor of the O Driscolls. He had four sons namely –

6. DAIRE CEARBA. – He was king of Leath-mhoga, and distinguished himself at the head of the forces of Munster in repelling the assaults of certain pirates who invested the coasts of Munster.

8. BRIAN. – He was king of South Munster when Niall of the Nine Hostages was monarch of Ireland. He had seven sons, viz

4. Daire, from whose grandson, Conall, descended the tribe Ui Conaill, giving name to Conilloes in the county of Limerick, of whom was O Coileain, O Kinealy, O Billrin, and other families, but not the O Connells as asserted by Dr. O Brien in his Irish Dictionary, for the O Connells of Kerry are of the same race as O Falvy, ie, of the race of Conary II, monarch of Ireland ; and the O Connells of Cork, as appears from the historical poem of Cathan O Duinn, are of the same race as the O Donohoes of Eoghanacht Locha Lein, in Kerry.

10. ERI, who had two sons, Lonan and Kinfaela [CINFAELE]. The former was chief of the Ui Figeinte and contemporary with St. Patrick, whom he entertained (according to the Tripartite Life, published by Colgan) in the year 439, at his palace situated on the summit of the hill of Rea, near the mountain of Cam Feradhaigh.

11. CINFAELE. Nothing is known of this chieftain, except that he was the first of his race who embraced the Christian religion, about the year 439, and that the following generations descended from him :-

17. EOGHAN, chief of Ui Figeinte, who was killed according to Tighernach, in the year 667.

23. CATHAL, chief of the Ui Figeinte, slain by the celebrated Callaghan Cashel, king of Munster. He had two sons Uainidh rex Coirprke, who died in 964, according to the old annals of Innisfallen, and

24. DONOVAN, the progenitor, after whom the family name O Donovan has been called. At this period surnames became for the first time hereditary in Ireland, for we find that many of the chieftain families in Ireland took surnames from ancestors who were living at this period.

[?25]. CATHAL MAC DONOVAN. Brian Borumha did not satisfy his revenge by the slaughter of Donovan and his people of Ui Figeinte, together with their allies, the Danes of Munster. In the year 978 he marched a second time against the rival race of Eoghan, or Eoghanacts, and came to an engagement with them at Beelach-Leachta in Muskery, near Macroom, in the county of Cork, where he vanquished and their Danish allies with dreadful havoc. After this defeat the race of Eoghan were more glad to give up their rivalship for the government of Munster, and to make peace with Brian on his own conditions. Accordingly, we find there two great races of the blood of Oilioll Olum at peace with each other for a period of thirty-six years, that is from the year 978 to 1014.

29. RAGHNALL, RANULPH, RANDAL, OR REGINALD O DONOVAN, another name which bespeaks a Danish alliance. In the year 1201 the chief of the O Donovans, Amhlaoibh, Aulaf, or Auliff, was seated in the now county of Cork, where he was slain that year by the O Briens and De Burgos, but how he stood related to this Raghnall has not been proved.

31. CROM O DONOVAN, Collins asserts that he was in possession of the great castle of Crom or Croom, on the river Maigne, in the present county of Limerick, and this was the tradition in the county in 1686 when the manuscript called Carbrico Notitia was written ; but the editor has not found this fact recorded in any contemporaneous documents…..According to the Dublin copy of the Annals of Innisfallen, he was killed in, or immediately before the year 1254 at Inis-an-bheil, now Pheale, near Iniskean, in the county of Cork, by O Mahony’s people. This Crom is the ancestor of all the septs of the O Donovan family in the baronies of Carbery, in the county of Cork, and of several others in Leinster. He gave name to Gleann a’Chroim, in the parish of Fanlobus, which afterwards became the property of a branch of the Mac Carthys, who had their principal seat at Dunmanway..

32. CATHAL, OR CAHELL O DONOVAN, the first son of Crom. This Cathal gave name to the territory of Clancahill, in the county of Cork, which is defined by an Inquisition taken at Cork on the 6^th of October, 1607, as containing three score and seven ploughlands, and extending from the sea on the south, to the river of Myalagh, and bounded on the north with the lands of Clandonnell Roe, the lands of Glan Scrime, and with the lands of Clanloghlin on the east, and the lands of Clandermodie and Clanteige Revoe on the west.’ This Inquisition also states that it contains two manors, viz, ‘the manor of Castell O Donyvane, containing twentie and one ploughlands, and the manor of Rahyne.’ This Cathal never had any possessions in the original territory, Ui Fegeinte, or Ui Cairbre Aebhdha, in the present county of Limerick, but he seems to have acquired a considerable tract of mountain territory in Corea Luighe, the original principality of the O Driscolls, to which newly acquired district he transferred the tribe name of his family, viz, Cairbre, which by a strange whim of custom, was afterwards applied to a vast territory, now forming four baronies in the county of Cork.

This extension of the name looks strange enough, as it was transferred since the year 1200, and as the race who transferred it did not remain the dominant family in the district. The fact seems to have been that, when Mac Carthy Reagh got possession of a part of this territory, in the latter end of the thirteenth century, the Ui Cairbre More were the most imapplied (sic) the name to the O Donovan territory and to all the minor cantreds attached by him from time to time.

36. RAGHNALL, RANDAL, OR REGINALD O DONOVAN. According to Duald Mac Firbis, he had a son DERMOT, the ancestor of all the subsequent chiefs of the O Donovans ; and Collins gives him a second son, Tioboid, the ancestor of a sept of the O Donovans, called Slioch-Tioboid, who possesses a tract of land near the town of Skibbereen, where they built the castle of Gortnaclogh, the ruins of which still remain, and are shewn on the ordnance map on a detached portion of the parish of Creagh.

39. DONNELL I O DONOVAN, COMMONLY CALLED DOMHNALL-NA-G-CROICEAIM, IE, DONNELL OF THE HIDES. He was inaugurated chief of Clancahill by Mac Carthy Reagh about the year 1560. He was fostered by O Leary at his castle of Carrignacurra (now called Castle Masters), situated in the parish of Inchageelagh or Iveleary, and it would appear that it was by O Leary’s assistance that he was enable to set aside his rival Dearmaid-a’-Bhaire. He was married to Ellen, the daughter of O Leary, at the church of Drumali, after having had by her Dermot O Donovan, and other sons, who were declared bastards by the Lord Chancellor, Adam Loftus, in 1592. He had also DONNELL and Teige, born after the solemnisation of his marriage according to the rites of holy church’(ie of Rome). His eldest son, Dermot O Donovan, was slain in the year 1581 at Lathach-na-n-Damh, by the illustrious warrior, Donnell O Sullivan, who afterwards became the O Sullivan Beare, as we learn from the Annals of the Four Masters …..He built Castle Donovan, according to Collins ; but others think that parts of the castle are much older than his time. He died in the year 1584, and was succeeded by his eldest legitimate son.

40. DONNELL II O DONOVAN**. – He succeeded his father in 1584, and in 1586 he burned to the ground the bishop’s house at Ross, which had been a short time before built by William Lyon, Bishop of Cork, Cloyne, and Ross…..In February 1592-3, his brother Teige, attempted to depose him on the score of illegitimacy but failed.

41. DONNELL III O DONOVAN, the tenth in direct descent from Crom, succeeded his father on the 13^th of Feb., 1639-40.

42. DONNELL IV. – On the death of his father in 1660, being left without any estates, he petitioned his Majesty Charles II immediately after his restoration to restore him to his father’s property.

43. CAPTAIN RICHARD, son of Colonel Daniel O Donovan. He married, in 1703, Ellinor Fitzgerald, daughter of the Knight of Kerry, by whom he had three children.

and some daughters ; the eldest of whom was Elizabeth, who married Sylvester O Sullivan, head of the sept called Mac Fineeenduff, of Dereenavurrig, near Kenmare, in Kerry, by whom she had numerous issue.

45. RICHARD II, son of Daniel O Donovan. He was born about 1764, and, in 1800, married Emma Anne Powell, a Welsh lady, by whom he had no issue.

46. RICHARD O DONOVAN, the sixth son of Daniel O Donovan**, who was inaugurated in 1584, and died in 1639; married Mary, who was the daughter of O Sullivan Beare, and by her mother grand-daughter of Lord Muskery, and great grand-daughter of the Earl of Clanrickartt, and had by her –

1. Daniel, who is mentioned in his grandfather, Donnell’s, will of 1629, and in his uncle Teige’s will of 1639, but of whose descendants, if he left any, no account is preserved.

47. RICHARD O DONOVAN, ESQ., L. L. D., who is said to have studied for twenty-two years in the University of Toulouse, where he obtained the degree of Doctor of both Laws. He was elected member of parliament for the borough of Baltimore, but he resigned to Jeremy O Donovan, of Ringogreany, chief of the Clann-Loughlin. This Dr. O Donovan married Catherine Ronayne, of Ronayne’s Court, near Cork, (the aunt of Mary Ronayne, the wife of Morgan O Donovan, Esq., the ancestor of the O Donovans of Monpellier, and had by her four sons.

46. Let us now go back to the youngest son of the last portant tribe within it (sic), and that he and his descendants inaugurated O Donovan, Readagh More, a gentleman of great statute, bodily strength, and military abilities’- Collins. His descendants are now known in the county by the name of Clann-Keady Donovan. [This should probably read – Readagh More, a gentleman of great statute, bodily strength, and military abilities, was the youngest son of Daniel II** O Donovan, and ancestor of the Clann-Keady branch of the O Donovans whose role was to inaugurate The O Donovan.]

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