way of alliance, married the daughter of
a leading Fitzgerald, their influence was nonetheless reduced as a result of the
encroachments of the Fitzgeralds.
The Cirieal mBeice or O’Mahonys descend
from Mathghamhain (slain at Clontarf in 1014) whose father Cian (son of Maolmuadh, King of
Munster in 978) commanded the forces of Desmond at the battle of Clontarf in 1014 jointly
with the ancestor of the O’Donoghues, and whose mother was a daughter of Brian Boru
(see under O’Brien). They gave their clan-name to their territory, now known under
the phonetically Anglicized form Kinelmeaky, an extensive district along the River Bandon
in the south of County Cork. As a reaction to the pressure caused by the Anglo-Norman
invasion of the late twelfth century, they expanded westward into the territory of their
collateral kinsmen, the Cineal Laoghaire. Afterwards their power extended from Kinelmeaky
southwards to the sea, where their fortified stronghold of Rosbrian lay off the coast of
southwest Cork.
The Eoghanacht Mag Geirginn inhabited the
district in northeast Scotland between the Tay and the Dee, and were especially associated
with Angus and what is now known as Kincardineshire (formerly "The Mearns").
They traditionally descend from Conal Corc, grandfather of Oengus, King of Munster (490),
who is said to have sojourned in Albany, or Scotland, where he married the daughter of
Feradach, King of Cruthentuath (Pictland), thus establishing the Eoghanacht of the
district of Mag Geirginn. His descendants by her included his son Cairbre (or Coirpre)
Cruithnechan ("Cairbre Pictling"), ancestor of the Mag Geirginn branch, also
known as Cairpre "mac na Cruithnige" (the son of the Pictish woman), and also
his son or grandson Maine Lemna, ancestor of the Lemnaig, later the ruling family of the
Levenax (later Lennox). Thus established, the Eoghanacht maintained their individuality at
least until the reign of Oengus mac Forggusso, King of the Picts (died 761), who was one
of them, and may have been the "Oengus" after whom "Angus" is named.
The district of Atholl (New Ireland) appears
about the beginning of the eighth century, with a king of its own, and this may represent
a later patrimony for the male-line representatives of the Eoghanacht in Scotland, in as
much as they maintained their individual patrilineal traditions within still-matrilineal
Pictland. That they did so is indicated by the traditional male-line descent of the
medieval ruling family of the Lennox from Maine Lemna, son or grandson of Conall Corc. The
nearby district of the Lennox apparently followed Atholl as this group’s patrimony as
they emerge as its ruling dynasty in the early twelfth century, having been for some time
its Mormaers and afterwards its earls (it is interesting to note the continuation of
distinctively South-Irish royal names, such as Corc among the House of Lennox even as late
as the fourteenth century). The family, known simply as "de Lennox," held the
earldom until it passed to the Stewarts of Darnley through an heiress in |
