Where did the O'Donoghues of North Kerry come from?

The O’Donoghues of North Kerry

Where did they come from?

By Rod O’Donoghue (one of them)

The question I am also asking myself is who were these O’Donoghues in North Kerry?  Where did they come from?  In Listowel and its vicinity by J Anthony Gaugan, 1973, I found that ‘the Broder or Broderick, Kennelly, O’Connor and Scanlan are probably the oldest in the district.  Close behind those are the McCarthy, Moriarty, O’Connell, O’Donoghue, O’Mahony, O’Shea and O’Sullivan families’.  O’Mahony and O’Sullivan also figure in our family tree.

Right next door to Ballyduff is the parish of Ballydonoghue (Baile Dhonnchú or Donoghue’s town or home).  The term baile means that the territory was occupied by an extended kin-group or family.  The parish used to be called Lisselton but, when asked what name they would like, the parishioners chose Ballydonoghue; this is the name of a local townland, which has nine rátha or circular forts in it showing that it was a place of some tribal importance long ago.  Further north and just over the border in Limerick is another townland called Ballydonoghue, and in the east of that county another one of the same name.  This suggests the presence of tribes of our name for many centuries.  Looking at the census of 1659 there were a lot of O’Donoghues in these three areas.

Local folklore states that Rattoo Tower was built to commemorate a battle against the Vikings at The Paddock, close to Ballyduff, which it is said that the O’Donoghues won.  In an article on Rattoo in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1910 it says ‘It is recorded in The Wars of the Gaedhill with the Gaill (the Gaels with the Foreigners) supposed to have been written by an eye-witness of the famous battle of Clontarf that in 812 the Danes first began the devastation of Erin, and that in this year they landed in Munster from 120 ships, plundered the country, and burned Inis Labhrainn and Dairinis, but were defeated by the Eoghanacht (O’Donoghues) of Lough Léin, ie the Lakes of Killarney’.  O’Donoghues has, it appears, been inserted by the author, on what basis I cannot say. 

If they were involved, 812 is before the O’Donoghues Mór had arrived in Killarney and might suggest another tribe.  John O’Donovan in his Ordnance Survey Letters (1834-42) states that Inis Labhrainn (island with something to do with speaking?) is an island in the mouth of the Cashen river in the townland of Derryco (either Doire na gcath: wood of the battle or Doire Cua: possibly wood of the heroes, 2 miles from Ballyduff), where there is also an old church (see right).  Some locals surmise that the O’Donoghues built Rattoo tower and church.

The Annals of the Four Masters says for 807 (corrected to 812) that ‘A slaughter was made of the foreigners by Cobhthach, son of Maelduin, lord of Loch Lein’ but doesn’t say where.  This is repeated in Annals of Ulster for the year 811 with the added note that King of Loch-Lein was a bardic term for the King of West Munster.  Francis Byrne in Irish Kings and High Kings shows Cobhthach (d.833), son of Máel Dúin (d.786) as a king of Locha Léin.  As I can see no Donnchadh in the pedigree for the Eoghanacht Locha Léin I am left confused.

I am afraid all this poses more questions than it answers.  My genetic signature of the O’Donoghue Mór suggests that these North Kerry/Limerick O’Donoghues probably came up from Cork or Kerry but it could very well have been a long time ago or even as a separate branch of the Eoghanacht, the paramount tribal group of Munster.

In the Aran Isles an O’Donoghue family told me that they were descended from two or three brothers and a wife from Kerry who rowed up the coast in the eighteenth century and stopped at Inis Oírr.  So perhaps that happened here but centuries earlier.

There is much more work to do! 

My O'Donoghue family from Ballyduff, North Kerry

My O’Donoghue family from Ballyduff, North Kerry

By Rod O’Donoghue (rod@odonoghue.co.uk)

It is relatively recently, after over twenty years of research, that I discovered that my ggggrandparents were James Donoghue and Juliana Boyle from Ballyduff; my gggrandparents were Thomas Donoghue (b.1806) and Ellen Connor (b.1808).  In March I spent hours pulling all the references to Donoghue, Boyle and Connor in Ballyduff and the townland in which it lies, Benmore, off the online parish records on irelandgenealogy.ie.  I laid out the probable siblings for my ancestors and their related families.  The earliest records are for 1782 but they are missing for 1786 to 1806.  I have now learnt that the parish priest for those years had the habit of writing disparaging remarks against some of his parishioners, such as drunkard, layabout etc.  When he was leaving he regretted his actions and his solution was to burn the parish register!  I recorded all entries up to 1851 when Thomas and Ellen left for London.

In April my sister, two sons and I set off to follow the trail. 

One of the pilots for a new initiative called Ireland Reaching Out was North Kerry (see http://www.northkerryreachingout.com/).  I have firsthand experience of their excellent support.  They introduced me to two local Ballyduff historians, one of whom spent a whole day with us and the other half a day. 

Near Ballyduff at Rattoo (Ráth Magha Tuirscit or Fort of the Northern Plains, apparently derived from an earthen fort near which the church was built) is the finest round tower in Ireland and next to it is a ruined church dated at its earliest to the ninth century.  As you can see, when we visited, the tower was covered with scaffolding!  Close by is an old abbey said to have been built during the reign of King John (1199-1216), but originally dating as a monastic settlement to the sixth century.

The churchyard contains a number of very old tombs or mausoleums.  We walked round and my sister called out that there was one which said ‘Erected by Sylvester O’Donoghue for him and his posterity 1820’.  I am fairly certain that he was my ggggrandfather’s brother.  The mausoleum or altar tomb was in bad repair and some patching had been done.  Behind his tomb was one for which there was a later inscription for a Boyle family, with Connors round the corner.  It felt right. 

The Griffiths Valuation for 1853 showed a Julia Donohoe living in the village.  She must have been my ggggrandmother even though she would have been in her seventies.  

Julia’s landlord was Thomas A. Stoughton and it is probable that my farming ancestors leased their properties from him.  He was an English absentee landlord with a country estate in Gloucestershire, but is said to have been a good man who looked after his tenants.  In fact all three local landlords of the time, Stoughton, Gun and Rice are given a pretty good press.

There are very few Donoghue or Boyle entries in the parish register after the Famine and this suggests that most of my family group left Ballyduff.  Julia must have been just too old to go with them.  It is possible that Thomas and Ellen’s eldest son, James, aged fifteen, stayed with her; I like to think so.  In 1841 the population of the village was 331, dropping to 269 (19%) in 1851.  By 1861 it was down to 214 and by 1881 it had sunk to 101.  Actually Ballyduff was not as bad as many; Rattoo the civil parish within which it lies dropped by 44% between 1841 and 1851.

The main families I am interested in, with the period in which they were having children (first and last birth dates in brackets), are

1780s

Sylvester Donohue & Mary Flahive: Ellen (1784)

1790 - early 1830s

James Donoghue & Juliana Boyle: Thomas (1806)

John Connor & Ellen Donoghue: Ellen (1808), Daniel, Mary, Honora, John, James, Margaret (1832)

1820-40s

Bartholomew Donohue & Bridget Ferris: Sylvester (1821), Ellen, James, Thomas, Patrick, Michael, Mary, Catherine (1844)

Thomas Donoghue & Ellen Connor: Julia (1834), James, John, Catherine, Thomas, Ellen (1847)

There are many other Boyles and Connors who are clearly part of my family group but those are for later.