This is also full of bold assertions, unsupported by history or etymology. Conmaicne does not mean the chief tribe, but the race of a chieftain called Conmac; Conmaicne mara, which is now anglicised Connamara, was never called Conmaicne ira, and Conmaicne mara and Iar Connaught are not now coextensive, nor were they considered to be so at any period of Irish history. Conmaicne mara was never called Hy Iartagh, and O’Flaherty was not the ancient chief of Conmaicne mara, for O’Flaherty was located in the plains of Moy Seola, lying eastwards of Lough Corrib, until he was driven across that lake into the wilds of Connamara by the De Burgos in the 13th century. Again, the surname O’Flaherty does not mean “the chief of the nobles of the western district,” but is derived from Flaithbheartach, who was chief of Hy Briuin Seola, not of Conmaicne mara, in the tenth century; and this chief was not the first who received the name, for it was the name of hundreds of far more distinguished chieftains who flourished in other parts of Ireland many centuries before him, and O’Flaherty became the name of a far more powerful family located in the north of Ireland; which shows that the name has no reference to north or west, but must look for its origin to some other source. Now, to any one acquainted with the manner in which compound words are formed in the Irish language, it will be obvious that the name Flaithbheartach is not derived from a locality or territory, but that it is formed from flaith, a chief, and beart, a deed or exploit, in the following manner: flaith, a lord or chief, flaithbheart, a lordly deed or exploit; and by adding the adjective and personal termination ach (which has nearly the same power with the Latin ax), we have flaithbheartach, meaning the lordly-deeded, or a man of lordly or chieftain-like exploits. According to the same mechanism, which is simple and regular, are formed several other compound words in this language, as oirbheart, a noble deed; oirbheartach, noble-deeded, &c.
Finally, Mr Beauford is wrong in the extent which he gives to Conmaicne mara. He is wrong in giving Morogh as the name of a modern barony, for there is none such in existence; and we have the most indisputable evidence to prove that the territory of Conmaicne mara, now called Connamara, never since the dawn of authentic history comprised more than one barony. It is to be regretted that these etymological phantasies of Mr Beauford about the country of O’Flaherty are received as true history by the O’Flahertys themselves, and repeated in modern topographical and literary productions of great merit.
I shall give one specimen more of this writer’s erroneous mode of explaining topographical names, and I shall then have done with him.
5. “Cairbre Aobhdha, or the district on the water, from cairbre, a district, and aobhdha, waters; the present barony of Kenry, in the county of Limerick. This country was also denominated Hy dun na bhan, or the hilly district on the river; the ancient chiefs whereof were called Hy Dun Navan or O’Donovan, that is, the chiefs of the hilly country on the river.”
Here every single assertion comprises a separate error. Cairbre does not mean a district, and aobhdha does not mean waters. This territory was not otherwise called Hy Dunnavan; and even if it were, that name would not mean “the hilly district on the river.” Again, the territory of Cairbre Aobhdha is not the barony of Kenry, neither is it a hilly district, but one of the most level plains in all Ireland; and lastly, the name O’Donovan does not moan “chiefs of the hilly district on the river,” for this family name was called after Donovan, the son of Cathal, chief of the Hy Figeinte, a people whose country extended from the river Shannon to the summit of Slieve Logher in the county of Kerry, and from Bruree and the river Maigue westwards to the verge of the present county of Kerry. He flourished in the tenth century, and was killed by the famous Brian Boru in a pitched battle, fought in the year 977; and his name was derived, not from his “hilly country on the river” Maigue, as Mr Beauford would have us believe (though it must be acknowledged that he resided at Bruree, which is a dun-abhann, or dun of the river), but from the colour of his hair; for the name is written by Mac Firbis and others Dondubhan, which signifies brown-haired chief.
I trust I have now clearly proved the fallacy of Mr Beauford’s mode of investigating the origin and meaning of the names of Irish families and territories. It is by processes similar to the five specimens above given that he has attempted to demonstrate his theory, that the names of Irish tribes and families were derived from the territories and localities in which they dwelt, a theory never heard of before his time; for up to the time of the writers of the Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, all were agreed that the Irish tribes took their surnames from certain distinguished ancestors, while the Saxons and Anglo-Normans took theirs generally from their territories and places of residence. For further information on this subject I refer the reader to Verstegan’s work, entitled “Restitution of Decayed Intelligence” and Camden’s “Remains.” The learned Roderic O’Flaherty, in his Ogygia Vindicated, p. 170, speaks on this subject in terms which Mr Beauford could not have mistaken. “The custom of our ancestors was not to take names and creations from places and countries as it was with other nations, but to give the name of the family to the seigniory by them occupied.”
To prove that I am not alone in the estimate that I have thus formed of the speculations of Mr Beauford, I shall here cite the opinions of a gentleman, the best acquainted of all modern writers with this subject, the venerable Charles O’Conor, of Belanagare, who, in a letter to the Chevalier Thomas O’Gorman, dated May 31, 1783, speaking of two tracts which he had published, to refute some errors of Dr Ledwich and Mr Beauford, says—
“Both were drawn from me to refute very injurious as well as very false representations published in the 9th number of the same Collectanea by Mr Ledwich, minister of Achaboe, and Mr Beauford, a schoolmaster in Athy. Little moved by any thing I have written against these gentlemen, the latter published his Topography of Ireland in the 11th number, the most flagrant imposition that I believe ever appeared in our own or in any age. This impelled me to resume the subject of our antiquities, and add the topography of Ireland, as divided into districts and tribes in the second century; a most curious record, preserved in the Lecan and Glendalough collections, as well as in your Book of Ballymote. I have shown that Beauford, a stranger to our old language, had but very slight materials for our ancient topography, and distorted such as he had to a degree which has no parallel, except perhaps in the dreams of a sick man in a phrenzy.”[1]
Again, the same gentleman, writing to his friend J. C. Walker on the same subject, expresses himself as follows:—
“Mr Beauford has given me satisfaction in his tract on our ancient literature, published in the Collectanea, and yet, in his ancient topography of Ireland, a book as large as his own might be written to detect his mistakes.”