Eight sons, without any daughter intervening, is a sort of effort of nature to preserve the name.
I can hardly believe that Mr. John D’Alton will live long enough to bring out another edition of his book, because he is very old and feeble. I shall, however, write him a note on the subject of your branch of our sept Hy-Donovane, which I hope he will be tempted to print (if he prints at all), because one of them—Captain Donell Boy MacEnesles O’Donovan was very distinguished, and was restored to property under the Act of Settlement and Explanation. If he does not print it, I shall be on the lookout for some other national work in which to insert it. In the meantime, I hope you will now and again, write to me, and believe me to be your affectionate clansman,
John O’Donovan.
Next comes this letter:
Dublin, June 12, 1856.
Dear Sir—I have just received your letter dated 9th inst., enclosing note from my neighbor John D’Alton, which I can hardly read, the handwriting is so unearthly. I did not pass through Skibbereen at the time you mention. So that you might have looked for me, but I fear you would have learned that I was in the North, among the Presbyterians. I am very glad that you have satisfied yourself that you are of the MacEnesles O’Donovans, (MacAneeis is the local name), because I had written in my published pedigree of the O’Donovans, before I ever had the honor of receiving any communication from you on the subject, the following sentence:
“The editor has not been able to identify any living member of this sept,” (of MacEnesles).
Aneslis, who was the second son of Crom O’Donovan, 1254, had four sons, Donogh More, Rickard, Walter and Randal, who became the founders of four distinct septs, who all bore the generic tribe-name of Clann Enesles, or MacAneeis, and whose territories are mentioned in various inquisitions, etc. The townland of Gortnascreena, containing three plough-lands (in the parish of Drimoleague), belonged in the year 1607 to the Sliocht Randal O’Donovan. In the same year the sept of MacEnesles possessed the townlands of Barnahulla, (now Butler’s gift), and also the lands of Meeny and Derryclough Lower, in the parish of Drinagh.
On the 20th of August, 1632, Dermot MacTeige MacEnesles O’Donovan was possessed of the lands of Lisnabreeny, west of the parish of Glenawilling, or Kilmeen, and I take this Dermot to be your ancestor.
If you descend from Dermot MacTeige MacEnesles, who lived at Lisnabreeny in 1632, and may have lived down to 1688, you do not want many generations in your line, with your present knowledge.