Archive | September, 2013

The demon and the head of  copy

The Cross of Cairbre Crom

It seems only fitting that when a man’s severed head is re-attached to his body and he is thereupon returned to life, the occasion should be marked in some small way. In the case of Cairbre Crom, the reputed sixth century ancestor of the O Kellys, Maddens, Egans, Kennys, Treacys, Larkins and many of the Gaelic […]

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Trench of Garbally

© Donal G. Burke 2013 The Trench family who established themselves in east Galway in the seventeenth century were of Huguenot (French Protestant) origin, having previously sought refuge in England from persecution in their homeland about the late sixteenth century. Frederic de la Tranche The family claim descent from one Frederic de La Tranche, whose […]

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Volunteer’s Gate, Lawrencetown

© Donal G. Burke 2013 Colonel Walter Lawrence erected a classically-designed monumental gateway at the western entrance to his estate at Lisreaghan (modern townland of ‘Belview or Lissareaghaun’), near the village of Lawrencetown in east Galway in the late eighteenth century. The gateway combined in its design a small pavilion-like gate-lodge on either side of […]

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Hamilton of Fahy

© Donal G. Burke 2013 A branch of the Hamiltons of Eliston, County Tyrone came to be seated at Fahy, in what was up until the early seventeenth century the heart of the ancestral lands of the O Horans and O Maddens in the east of County Galway. The ancestors of this branch of the […]

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Blake

© Donal G. Burke 2013 The Blake family were established in the west of Ireland in the Anglo-Norman period and reputed to be of Welsh origin. The name derives from Richard Cadell or Caddle, who was also known by his cognomen ‘Niger’ or ‘le Blak’’ (ie. ‘the Black’) and whose landed interests appear to have […]

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Introduction to Heraldry in Ireland

© Donal G. Burke 2013 Ireland is one of the few countries in the world in which the practical application of heraldry has been continuously regulated by a State-empowered authority since the mid sixteenth century. While heraldry proper was introduced into Ireland by the Anglo-Normans, a functioning regulatory authority or Office of Arms with jurisdiction […]

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O Kelly of Creagh, etc.

© Donal G. Burke 2013 In the late medieval period a large territory within Uí Maine, the ancestral lands of the O Kellys in the eastern region of the later County of Galway, was occupied by a junior sept of the name, the head of which was a tributary of the more senior O Kelly […]

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