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descended from one of the three sons of Milesius who had issue. These
are referred to as the "Milesian genealogies." Before writing was widespread in Ireland, a class of men were trained to memorize the hereditary history of their clan and all the descendants from the founder or progenitor without error or omission. They were called "filidh" a branch of the nemedh or "sacred persons" caste which included poets and druids. This class was generally replaced in the Christian era by the clergy, but the function of the filidh was never truly replicated. In the third century of the Christian era. King Cormac Mac Art ordered the history of the Irish nation to be compiled. This work was called The Psalter of Tara. From this and other more recent works, The Psalter of Cashel was written in the ninth century. The original of this is in a London museum. After Christianity came in the 5th century, the monk scribes recorded all of the history and pedigrees they could find. Most hereditary surnames only came into use in the tenth century, by command of the illustrious King Brian Boru according to legend. The harp believed to be his is in the Trinity college museum in Dublin, Ireland. In the 5th century, St Patrick was one of the nine personages appointed by the triennial parliament of Tara to review, examine, and purge errors from all the chronicles, genealogies, and records of the Kingdom. The numbers on this list are supposed to be the generations of descendants from the first man, Adam. In compiling the genealogies, the scribes also attempted to "harmonize" the various oral traditions so that they matched Christian traditional dates and histories found in the Bible and Old Testament, amoung other writings. No little amount of controversy exists today on how accurate or objective this task turned out to be, but most historians believe Irish pedigrees are fairly accurate back to the 6th or possibly the 5th century. From that point no man living can say for sure, but the Irish annals have proven to be more complete and accurate than any other culture save the Hebrews (Jews). Dates have not survived along with many of these names, but by checking through other pedigrees and noting dates of others close to the number of your ancestor, you can estimate the approximate date of when the first person to bear your clan name lived. Number 103 is about the year 900 A.D.. (using an average of 3 generations per century). Abstracts from the Annals of the Four Masters Compiled in the years 1632-1636 at the convent of Donegal, by the chief author, Michael O'Cleary, a monk of the order of St. Francis, after a search of fifteen years throughout the country for the most important of the Irish documents. NOTE: The ANCESTOR of a Clan, as referred to here, is one who begins a branch off the main stem that leads to the founder of that Clan's name. A QUO = "from which descended;" ANG. = anglicized. (English translation) ED. Pat
Traynor compiled much of the above work from Irish Pedigrees,
by John O'Hart, pub. 1892, vol. 1 of 2. Readers are cautioned to check
the original text, as several pedigrees had to be searched in making a
line from Milesius to the 10th century in most cases. |
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Annals of the Four Masters Three of the volumes of the Annals of the Four Masters are available online at University College of Cork (UCC). The URLs for volumes 1,5 and 6 are: http://www.ucc.ie/celt/online/T000001/ |
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Other Ancient Irish Historical Sites The
High Kings of Ireland Rawlinson
B502 Genealogies More Ancient
Histories |
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