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Clans and Families of Ireland and Scotland
VIII. The Laigin


comprised the district around Stradone in County Cavan, a few miles to the east of Cavan town. They are traditionally a branch of the O’Carrolls of Leitrim, which family had been lords of all Oriel until the twelfth century Anglo-Norman invasion. The MacBradys are now numerous throughout Ulster.

The Ui Chremthainn anciently inhabited the territory between Lough Erne and the River Blackwater, in what is now County Fermanagh and the north of County Monaghan. The chief branches of the Ui Chremthainn include the Clann Lugain, and also the O’Mulroonys or Moroneys and the O’Boylans.

The O’Boylans (O Baoigheallain) were of the same stock as the O’Flanagans (O Flannagain) of northwest Fermanagh. The O’Boylans were, after the Anglo-Norman invasion, lords of all Oriel, a widespread territory stretching from Fermanagh to Louth. Later, in the thirteenth century, their power in Oriel was subdued by the MacMahons, and their territory was reduced to what is now the barony of Dartry in the west of County Monaghan, an area then known as Dartraighe. They did, however, remain powerful, and in O’Dugan’s fourteenth-century "Topographical Poem" they are called "the bold kings of Dartry," and are praised for their horsemanship and their blue eyes.

The O’Mulroonys (O Maolruanaidh) were the leading clan of Fermanagh before the rise of the Maguires, who subjugated them about 1300. A branch of the O’Mulroonys afterwards settled in the northeast of County Galway, where they were chiefs of Crumhthan (Cruffan), a district comprising the modern barony of Killyan and part of the adjoining barony of Ballimoe. For the Galway branch, the name has changed to Moroney.

The Clann Lugain included the Maguires, MacKernans, MacAuleys, O’Cassidys, O’Corrigans and MacManuses. The Maguires (Mag Uidhir) are first mentioned in the Annals in A.D. 956. They rose to great power in the later part of the thirteenth century, and became lords of Fermanagh, where the town and castle at Maguiresbridge recalls their importance there. They were long one of the most powerful and influential families in Ulster, and produced many great soldiers and ecclesiastics. During the reign of James I, in the first part of the seventeenth century, much of the territory of the Maguires was included in the vast confiscation of Ulster which followed the English conquest of the north. More land loss followed in the Cromwellian and Williamite confiscations, for the Maguires were ardent Jacobites, and later they were prominent among the "Wild Geese" in the service of France and Austria. As barons of Enniskillen their chiefs were accepted as nobility at the Court of France until the title became extinct about 1795.

The MacManuses (Mac Maghnuis) descend from Maghnus, son of Donn Maguire, chief of Fermanagh, who died in A.D. 1302. The head of this family resided at Senadh Mic Maghnusa, now Bell Isle, on Lough Erne. The O’Cassidys (O Caiside) were a distinguished medical family, being the


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