Barry,

Earlier you asked what my DNA profile was.  I have since had that profile completed.

DNA analysis reveals I am of R1a origin. My DNA differs from the current MacDonald chieftains at 458.  I am hopeful that more DNA analysis comes in for the other five principle galloglaigh families in Ireland, i.e., MacDougals, MacSweeneys, MacRorys, MacSheeleys and MacCabes.  Geneologies indicate the MacDonnells, MacDougals, MacRorys and MacSheeleys all descend from Somhairle, Lord of the Isles.  A numbert of authors also beleive that he MacSweeneys decended from Angus mac Somhairle.  It will be interesting to see if your work verifies and disproves these geneologies.  In visiting with the MacCabe DNA project they have identified over 20 different lines of MacCabes at this time.  My understanding is that thus far they know many of the MacCabes are of Western European descent and several have the unique genetic marker of Conn of the Hundred Battles.  I don't even pretend to understand what this means.  Perhaps you can put it in laymans terms.

Thanks,


Colla

For anyone interested, the McCabes now have a family DNA project going with 56 DNA samples collected to date.   This project could have significant historic value to both Scotland and the Ulster.

Barry,

Have either the MacCabe or the MacSweeney families submitted DNA samples to your project?  If so, have you any indication of ethnic origin.

Thank you.

T

Has DNA from the MacDomnaills been compared to any families in the Burgundy Region of France?

Colla

Barry,

I have one more family I was hoping you had DNA profiles on, the MacCabe galloglaigh family.  They came from Scotland to Ireland in the 14th Century, but have no historic roots that can be traced.  We therefore suspect they may have French DNA originating in the 13th Century.  In specific we believe Caba' may have been one of the 144 Knights Templar sentenced to isolation by Edward II of England in Benedictine monastaries and then freed in 1311.  Instead of remaining with the Benedictine Order in England we believe he joined my family (Alexander Durrach MacDomhnaill) who owned the Isle of Mull in Scotland by Charter dating 1306 of Robert de bruse. We also believe decendants of Caba' became mercenariies utilizing the learned skills of warfare of their father and migrated with my family to Ireland following the death of Alexander Durrach MacDomhnaill on the Irish battlefield in 1318.

Colla

Barry,

We have long believed the MacSuibne galloglaigh descended from Angus mac Somhairle who was died about 1203 A.D. and who was the brother of Dugal (MacDoughal or MacDowell galloglaigh) and the brother of Raghnall (MacDonnell, MacSheely, MacSorley and MacRory galloglaigh).  The MacSuibne genealogy takes the family back to Conn of the Hundred Battles, which makes the genealogy automatically suspect (So does the MacDomhnaill Galloglaigh genealogy).  Do you have any DNA results on this family?

Colla

In Response to a personal e-mail from the McShanes and Johnsons.

Yes it was my family (my great.....grandfather Gillepic) who slew Feidim Caech O'Neill, son of Conn O'Neill in 1542.  The Annalists of the various Irish Annals strongly suggest that Feidim provoked this attack upon himself.  In justification of his killing, we also accompanied our cousins, the Antrim MacDonnells, in slaying Feidim's half-brother, Shane the Proud O'Neill, and placed his head on a pike at the gates of Dublin in 1566.  In further justification, my family shed its blood in defense of the O'Neills from 1366 to 1651 with no qualms.

Colla

To anyone in Armagh,

I am looking for the grave of my great-grandfather named Bernard McDonnell.  He was born 1795 in the County of Armagh , Poor Law Union of Newry, Barony of the Lower Fews, Diocese of Armagh, Parish of Loughgilly, Townland of Carrowmannon, Division of Belleek, and on the estate of the Earl of Gosford, better known as the Acheson Family of Scotland.  He was a life long Catholic, who attended mass in Belleek, Bernard died on March 20, 1873 in the home he was born.  My Uncle Patrick may have placed a new stone on his grave in 1910.  Bernard may be buried on the grounds of St. Laurence O'Toole Roman Catholic Church in Belleek.  If so, there is said to be an 1872 historical account of the Church, a list of those buried in the yards from 1871 to 1876, and a list of those who subscribed to the Church's building work from 1846 to 1872.  However, this is a new church, and my family lived in Carrowmannon from 1664, and in this region of the Fews since 1542.   So Bernard may have been buried with "his own kind" elsewhere.  Any help is appreciated

Colla

Barry,

I have an immense amount of research on MacDomhnaill galloglaigh I would like to make available.  Would I do this on your Scotch-Irish site or history site?  I have extensively researched the period 1299 to 1375 when my family went with Edward the Bruce to Ireland and then moved permanently from the Hebrides to Connaught and the Ulster of Ireland.  Most of this research is new and unpublished

Colla

Karen,

Dead ends are the name of the game in this endeaver.  I have only been able to follow through on two leads this entire year.  The first involve the Carew Manuscripts in 1561.  Total accident me coming across this passage.  The second was yesterday and my great....grandfather, who was also your great.....grandfather's relationship with St. Malachy and St. Bernard.  In 1140 St. Malachy predicted the fall and death of King Edward the Bruce on the Irish battlefield outside Dublin in 1318.  Many of our relatives died on the same battlefield.  St. Bernard was St. Malachy most close friend.  St. Bernard had a very profound impact on my families destiny in Ireland for the next 500 years.

Colla

Brian,

In researching my family, I found that spelling is a 20th century phenomenon.  Here in the United States, Thomas Jefferson tried to simplify spelling and make it more consistant.  These efforts didn't catch on across America until a hundred or more years later.

Before 1900, people were more worried about the sound of a name rather than its actual spelling.  This was further complicated when the education of Irish was banned by the English.  Since most Irish couldn't write, their names were often spelled how the individual English writer heard the individual state his name.   

Before the banning of the Irish language and education, Irish and Scottish spelling still wasn't consistent.  Spelling seemed to be dependant upon the depth of the writer's brogue as much as anything. 

Karen,

I also hope their are no hard feeling about my great however many grandfathers Raghnall slaying his brother and your however many great grandfathers Dugal in 1192 for chieftainship of Clan Somhairle.  You will be happy to know Dugal's great grandson Alexander killed  my great however many uncle and his entire family in 1299 and I hold no hard feelings.

Colla

Karen,

Hello very, very distant cousin.  You decended from Dugal mac Somhairle and I from Raghnall mac Somhairle in the 12th century.  My family, the MacDonnells also ended up in county Tyrone in 1425 where we were the hereditary military body of the O'Neills.  In regard to your question.  I would begin working with the Catholic Church in city Armagh.  Your relative would have been in the Civil Parish of Cloger.  The church for most of the Ulster has fairly good baptismal records back to the 1820s.  If your family is Catholic, you could probably find her baptism record, the name of her parents and siblings.  You may also be able to find her parents baptism records.  Its a start. 

Colla

Barry,

I have the Viking genealogy of Somhairle back to 216 A.D. This genealogy includes the Viking kings of Dublin in 800 A.D.  I have long suspected that Gilla Adamnain, grandfather of Somhairle, adopted the genealogy of his wife who descended from Geoffradh mac Fergus.  As you are aware, Gilla Adamnain was exiled from the Isles in 1098 by King Magnus of Norway and lived in Airghialla (North of Ireland) the remainder of his life.  His son GilleBride mac Gilla Adamnain may have also been fostered by the Irish, as was common practice, and adopted the lineage of the three Collas. Due to Somhairle's devout religious nature, I have suspected that GillaBride (and possibly Somhairle as a child) was influenced by Saint Malachy himself before the Saint became the abbot of Bangor in Down in 1123.

The Clan Donald has had heated discussion over the viking genealogy, and the some chieftains of the Clan consider me a threat due to my senior lineage under the primogeniture they have adopted.  My family continued in tanistry after we left Scotland in 1366 until it was finally extinguished in 1650, so I have no interest in their titles.

I have not given my participation in the DNA project much thought as my genealogy is well documented and phenologically I look like family members described 500 and 600 years ago by the English.  I have fair hair, blue eyes, am broad of shoulder and well over 6 foot just as the generations before me were.  My family's village in the South of Armagh, immediately know me as one of the tall MacDonnells whenever I visit and many of my relatives carried the name Buidhe from 1400 to 1650.

Here is a discription of Eoin, MacDomhnaill Galloglagh and his brothers and cousins in 1562 in Queen Elizabeth's court.  Wearing saffron and refusing to speak any language but Gaelic was made punishable by death by Henry VIII in the 1530s.  But Sean O'Neill and Eoin MacDonnell remained defiance even in the Queen's court.

“'O'Neill stalked in, his saffron mantle sweeping round and round him, his hair curling on his back, and clipped short below the eyes, which gleamed from under it with a grey lustre, frowning, fierce, and cruel. Behind him followed his galloglasse, bare-headed and fair-haired, with shirts of mail which reached their knees, a wolf-skin flung across their shoulders, and short broad battle-axes in their hands.”- Froude 1562

This scene was further described by Hayes and McCoy as such, “Shane…was accompanied by an escort of gallowglasses armed with battleaxes, bare-headed, with flowing curls, yellow shirts dyed with saffron, large sleeves, short tunics, and rough cloaks, whom the English followed with as much wonderment as if they had come from China or America.”