But though the erection of this castle is properly to be ascribed to the O’Briens, it is a great error in the writers of Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary to state that it has been from time immemorial the property of the O’Brien family. The locality, as its name indicates, and as history and tradition assure us, was the ancient residence of the O’Quins, a family of equal antiquity with the O’Briens, and of the same stock—namely, the Dal Cas or descendants of Cormac Cas, the son of Ollioll Oluim, who was monarch of Ireland in the beginning of the third century. The O’Quins were chiefs of the clan called Hy-Ifearnan, and their possessions were bounded by those of the O’Deas on the east, the O’Loughlins and O’Conors (Corcomroe) on the west and north-west, the O’Hynes on the north, and the O’Hehirs on the south. At what period or from what circumstance the O’Quins lost their ancient patrimony, we have not been able to discover; but it would appear to have been about the middle or perhaps close of the fourteenth century, to which time their genealogy as chiefs is recorded in that invaluable repository of Irish family history, the Book of Mac Firbis; and it would seem most probable that they were transplanted by the O’Briens about this period to the county of Limerick, in which they are subsequently found. Their removal is indeed differently accounted for in a popular legend still current in the barony, and which, according to our recollections of it, is to the following effect:

In the youth of the last O’Quin of Inchiquin, he saw from his residence a number of swans of singular beauty frequenting the west side of the lake, and wandering along its shore. Wishing, if possible, to possess himself of one of them, he was in the habit of concealing himself among the rocks and woods in its vicinity, hoping that he might take them by surprise, and he was at length successful: one of them became his captive, and was secretly carried to his residence, when, to his amazement and delight, throwing off her downy covering, she assumed the form of a beautiful woman, and shortly after became his wife. Previous to the marriage, however, she imposed certain conditions on her lover as the price of her consent, to which he willingly agreed. These were—first, that their union should be kept secret; secondly, that he should not receive any visitors at his mansion, particularly those of the O’Briens; and, lastly, that he should wholly abstain from gambling. For some years these conditions were strictly adhered to; they lived in happiness together, and two children blessed their union. But it happened unfortunately at length that at the neighbouring races at Cood he fell in with the O’Briens, by whom he was hospitably treated; and being induced to indulge in too much wine, he forgot his engagements to his wife, and invited them to his residence on a certain day to repay their kindness to him. His wife heard of this invitation with sadness, but proceeded without remonstrance to prepare the feast for his guests. But she did not grace it with her presence; and when the company had assembled, and were engaged in merriment, she withdrew to her own apartment, to which she called her children, and after embracing them in a paroxysm of grief, which they could not account for, she took her original feathery covering from a press in which it had been kept, arrayed herself in it, and assuming her pristine shape, plunged into the lake, and was never seen afterwards. On the same night, O’Quin, again forgetful of the promises he had made her, engaged in play with Tiege-an-Cood O’Brien, the most distinguished of his guests, and lost the whole of his property.

The reader is at liberty to believe as much or as little of this story as he pleases: but at all events the legend is valuable in a historical point of view, as indicating the period when the lands of Inchiquin passed into the hands of the O’Brien family; nor is it wholly improbable that under the guise of a wild legend may be concealed some indistinct tradition of such a real occurrence as that O’Quin made a union long kept hidden, with a person of inferior station, and that its discovery drew down upon his head the vengeance of his proud compeers, and led to their removal to another district of the chiefs of the clan Hy-Ifearnan.

Be this, however, as it may, the ancient family of O’Quin—more fortunate than most other Irish families of noble origin—has never sunk into obscurity, or been without a representative of aristocratic rank; and it can at present boast of a representative among the nobility of the empire in the person of its justly presumed chief, the noble Earl of Dunraven.

We have thus slightly touched on the history of the O’Quins, not only as it was connected with that of the locality which we had to illustrate, but also as necessary to correct a great error into which Burke and other modern genealogists have fallen in their accounts of the origin of the name and descent of this family. Thus it is stated by those writers that “the surname is derived from Con Ceadcaha, or Con of the hundred battles, monarch of Ireland in the second century, whose grandson was called Cuinn (rather O’Cuinn), that is, the descendant of Con, when he wielded the sceptre in 254.” But those writers should not have been ignorant that Con, which literally signifies the powerful, was a common name in Ireland both in Christian and Pagan times; and still more, they should not have been ignorant of the important fact for a genealogist, that the use of surnames was unknown in Ireland till the close of the tenth century. The story is altogether a silly fiction; and as the real origin of the family appears to be now unknown even to themselves, and as their pedigree has never as yet been printed, we are tempted to give it in an English form, translated from the original, preserved in the books of Lecan and Duald Mac Firbis:—

The pedigree is carried up from this Con through eighteen generations to Cormac Cas, the son of Ollioll Oluim, and the common progenitor of all the tribes of the Dal-Cassians.

In this notice we may add, as an evidence of the ancient rank of the family, that the Irish annalists at the year 1188 record the death of Edaoin, the daughter of O’Quin, Queen of Munster, on her pilgrimage at Derry in that year. She appears to have been the wife of Mortogh O’Brien, who died without issue in 1168, and was succeeded by his brother Donald More, the last king of all Munster.

The Castle of Inchiquin is referred to in the Irish Annals as the residence of the chiefs of the O’Brien family, at the years 1542, 1559, and 1573; but the notices contain no interest to the general reader.

P.