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Irish genealogy is the study of individuals and families who originated on the island of Ireland.
Origins
Genealogy was cultivated since at least the start of the early Irish historic era. Upon inauguration, Bards and poets are believed to have recited the ancestry of an inaugurated king to emphasize his hereditary right to rule. With the transition to written culture, oral history was preserved in the monastic settlements. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín believed that Gaelic genealogies came to be written down with or soon after the practice of annalistic records, annals being kept by monks to determine the yearly chronology of feast days (see Irish annals).[citation needed]
Genealogy had at first served a purely serious purpose in determining the legal rights of related individuals to land and goods. Under Fenechas, ownership of land was determined by Agnatic succession, female ownership being severely limited.[citation needed]
Some clans, such as Mac Fhirbhisigh and Ó Duibhgeannáin were originally hereditary ecclesiastical families, while others (Ó Cléirigh, Mac an Bhaird, Ó Domhnallain) were dispossessed royalty who were forced to find another profession (see also Irish medical families).
The transmission of this body of lore (Irish: seanchas) has resulted in detailed knowledge on the origins and history of many of the tribes and families of Ireland. An anglicized tradition has continued since the 17th-century, translating many of the scripts into English. The practice of genealogy continues to be of importance among the Irish and its diaspora. Historians (such as Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and Nollaig Ó Muraíle) consider the Irish genealogical tradition to have the largest national corpus in Europe.[citation needed]
Irish genealogical dogma
Over the course of several centuries, an evolving genealogicaldogma created by the bardic tradition viewed all Irish as descendants of Míl Espáine. This ignored variant traditions, including those recorded in their own works. The reasons behind the doctrine's adoption are rooted in the policies of dynastic and political propaganda.[citation needed]
It was enhanced and embedded in the tradition by successive generations of historians such as Seán Mór Ó Dubhagáin (d. 1372), Gilla Íosa MacFhirbhisigh (fl. 1390–1418) and Flann Mac Aodhagáin (fl. 1640). By 1600 it was refined to the point that certain Anglo-Irish families were given spurious Gaelic ancestors and origin legends, such was their immersion in Gaelic culture.
The first Irish historian who questioned the reliability of such accounts was Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh (d. 1671), whose massive Leabhar na nGenealach included disparate and variant recensions. Unlike Geoffrey Keating's Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, he did not attempt to synthesize the material into a unified whole, instead recording and transmitting it unaltered. However, historians as late as such as Eugene O'Curry (1794–1862) and John O'Donovan (1806–1861) sometimes accepted the doctrine and a nationalistic interpretation of Irish history uncritically. During the 20th century the doctrine was reinterpreted by the work of historians such as Eoin MacNeill, T. F. O'Rahilly, Francis John Byrne, Kathleen Hughes (historian), and Kenneth Nicholls.[citation needed]
Annála Ríoghachta Éireann: Annals of the kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, from the earliest period to the year 1616, compiled 1628–1635, Mícheál Ó Cléirighet al (edited and translated by John O'Donovan, 1856)
Seán Ó Donnabháin, An Cúigiú Máistir, Nollaig Ó Muraíle, in Scoláirí Gaeilge: Léchtaí Cholm Cille XXVII, Eag. R. Ó hUiginn. Maigh Nuad, 1997, Lch. 11–82
Irish genealogical collections: the Scottish dimension, Nollaig Ó Muraíle, in International Congress of Celtic Studies 10 (1995), pp. 251–264, 1999
Iris Mhuintir Uì Dhonnabháin, O'Donovan History 2000, Published by the O'Donovan Clan, Skibbereen, Ireland. Article by Michael R. O'Donovan
The Tribes of Galway, Adrian James Martyn, Galway, 2001
Royal Roots, Republican Inheritance – The Survival of the Office of Arms, Susan Hood, Dublin, 2002
"They’re family!": cultural geographies of relatedness in popular genealogy, Catherine Nash, in Sara Armed, Anne-Marie Fortier and Mimi Sheller eds. Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration, Berg, Oxford and New York, 179–203, 2003
Genetic kinship, Cultural Studies, 18(1): 1–34, Catherine Nash, 2004.
Irish Origins, Celtic Origins: Population Genetics, Catherine Nash, Cultural Politics, Irish Studies Review, 14 (1): 11–37, 2006
Of Irish descent: origin stories, genealogy, & the politics of belonging, Catherine Nash, Syracuse University Press, 2008. ISBN978-0-8156-3159-0
Further reading
De Praesulibus Hiberniae Commentarius, Sir James Ware, 1665
Ogygia: seu Rerum Hibernicarum Chronologia & etc. ..., Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh, 1685 (published and translated into English by Rev. James Hely, 1783)
A dissertation on the origin and antiquities of the antient Scots, and notes, critical and explanatory, on Mr. O'Flaherty's text, Charles O'Conor (historian), included in The Ogygia vindicated: against the objections of Sir George Mackenzie, king's advocate for Scotland in the reign of king James II, by Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh, 1775
On the Heathen State and Topography of Ancient Ireland, Charles O'Conor, 1783
Lecturers on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History, Eugene O'Curry, 1861, a collection of 21 lectures
Placenames and early settlement in county Donegal, Dónall Mac Giolla Easpaig, in Donegal: History and Society, edited by William Nolan, Liam Ronayne and Mairéad Dunlevy. Dublin, 1996. pp. 149–182.
