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From: "STEPHANIE STEPHENSON" <>
Subject: [DWYER-L] "The O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh" - Chapter XXI
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 12:23:41 +0100

Taken from "The O'Dwyer's of Kilnamanagh: The History of An Irish Sept" by
Sir Michael O'Dwyer, published London 1933.


CHAPTER XXI

CONCLUSION

"It is interesting to speculate what would be the condition of Ireland
today, if the old tribal aristocracy had not been expropriated and largely
driven overseas, but had been allowed to retain their lands and their
hereditary status like the heads of the Scots' clans that also adhered to
the Stuarts. The most striking features in the Irish, as in the Highland,
clan system was the devotion of the members of the sept or clan to the Chief
and his family. That devotion and the sanctions of religion were the only
ties that maintained a sense of discipline and of respect for authority
among the independent and self-willed Celtic tribesmen who had never been
broken into subordination by the feudal system. The disappearance of the
first of these two is, in the writer's view, responsible for most of the
agrarian and political troubles in Ireland since Cromwell's conquest; the
serious weakening of the second would remove one of the few remaining
bulwarks of social order.

The question may be used - can any of the descendants of the last Chiefs of
Kilnamanagh, Philip of Dundrum or Anthony of Clonyhorpe, be traced today?
The writer has not been able to ascertain if Philip left any issue - the
romantic story of a daughter having married the Colonel Maude to whom
Dundrum was assigned need not be taken seriously. But the funeral Entries
in the Office of Arms show that he had the following brothers and sisters -
Connor, Donogh (hanged in 1652), Margaret and Winifred. Anthony O'Dwyer of
Clonyhorpe, Philip's contemporary and son of Derby (who was Chief up to his
death in 1629) had three brothers and eight sisters as shown in the
following Funeral entry:

Derby O'Dwyer Esq. m Eleanor, daughter of
died 9 January 1629 John Fitzgerlad of
buried at Holycrosse Kilveaghney in
Co. Cork Esq.
Their Issue: Edmund, Owney (Anthony of Clonyhorpe), Charles,
William, Winifred, Giles, Morin, Dorothy. 4 others (named).

As Philip (who had "died of a lingering disease at Dundrum on May 3. 1648")
and Anthony were both by name "exceptd from pardon for life and estate" in
the Act of 1652, none of their brothers or descendants would be among the
few O'Dwyers who were given lands beyond the Shannon. On the other hand, it
is unlikely that all of their brothers or descendants, if any, were killed
in the Civil War, or hanged, or followed Edmund O'Dwyer into Flanders.
There is a strong presumption that some of their descendants survived in
Tipperary and are among the four or five thousand of the name in the county
today.

The writer's father, John O'Dwyer of Barronstown, (1820-83), claimed that
his branch of the family was descended from John O'Dwyer of Dundrum, father
of Philip, the last Chief. But of this there is no documentary evidence
(such old papers as he had having gone astray after his death in 1883),
though there is a certain amount of tradition; and some O'Dwyers at home and
abroad regard the Barronstown family as the head of what is left of the Sept
that held Kilnamanagh for ten centuries. Doubtless others of the name make
the same claim, e.g. the three families ejected from Garryduff by Lord
Hawarden 100 years ago, who are said to have been the direct descendants of
the Kilnamanagh Barons. The history of the Sept itself is however far more
important than the discussion of claims to its titular headship, though the
materials of elucidating these may be forthcoming hereafter.

The present writer has had neither the time nor the qualifications to do
more than collate the information regarding the Sept that is fairly
accessible in print, in public records, in the collections of MSS, in the
Bodleian, Public Record Office (London) and the Royal Irish Academy; and
some of the material has doubtless escaped his notice. Further research
among the Ormond Collection in Kilkenny Castle, which are now being examined
by the Irish Historical MSS, Commission, the Carew MSS. in Lambeth Palace,
in Irish manuscripts, especially those in the Royal Irish Academy, in old
parish records of births, baptisms, deaths and marriages (which
unfortunately for Catholics do not go back beyond a century) and in Vicars'
Prerogative Wills, if any survived the Four Courts destruction, would
doubtless clear up many obscurities as regards the O'Dwyers in Ireland. For
those in foreign service the material in the military archives of France,
Spain, Austria, Russia, etc., has never yet been examined.

The present writer trusts that even this incomplete account of the history
of a typical sept, neither very powerful nor very prominent, may show that
the research reveals a good deal of interest and thus may stimulate someone
better equipped to complete the story of the O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh, and
encourage others to compile the history of septs which have played a greater
part in Irish annals.

P.S. - In the preceding pages the writer, in the interests of historical
truth and not for the purpose of reviving bitter memories, has had to give
prominence to the racial and religious strife that has divided Ireland in
the past. In the future his hope is that the dream of that broadminded
patriot, Thomas Davis, may be realised in a union of Celt and Saxon.

"What matter if at different times
Our fathers won the sod,
What matter if at different shrines
We pray to the one God.
In fortune and in fame we're bound
By links as strong as steel
And neither shall be safe or sound
But in the other's weal."

End.


In case anyone is wondering, I started with the last part of the Book as
this is obviously where most people's interests lie. It is my intention now
to go to the beginning of the Book, and commence with the Introduction, and
proceeding chapters, to put the whole Book into context, with the whole
history of the O'Dwyer sept, from its earliest origins. My output to the
List will be no more than one to two emails a week.

After having problems transferring the O'Dwyer pedigree to the body of an
email (I lost the lines!), I am wondering how to transfer tables giving
names of Dwyers and their townlands during the confiscations. If anyone out
there knows how I can successfully transfer these tables from Word to
Outlook Express 5, I would appreciate it.

Stephanie.

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• [DWYER-L] "The O'Dwyers of Kilnamanagh" - Chapter XXI by "STEPHANIE STEPHENSON" <>