Old Irish Families

New Zealand Tablet, 8 June 1911, Page 1041

Old Irish Families

In a letter to the New York Tribune, Herbert O'Hara Molmeaux, says of the old families in the history of the United States: As Ireland emerges from her night of trouble and prepares to take her natural place among the Nations of the earth, the attention of the genealogists of Europe has become concentrated on the remarkable record of .her old families. g*lt would be thought, that with the rum and obliteration of. so much at ; different epochs in the history of r; Ireland the lineal links between one generation/and another could not survive. ; In point -of fact, the tracing of Irish lineages along assured records is clearer in Ireland than in any'country in the world. There are many reasons for this, among- them being that Ireland's position was at the boundary of the Western world, and/ therefore favorable to /long Settlement. It has thus come about that the genealogies of Ireland present several unique features. , Thus families are to be found that have lived on the same-spot for nearly two thousand years, with no more change to the patronymic than that necessitated by its translation into a Latin, Norman or English equivalent. - The Magillapatraic (son of Patrick) became Fitz (fils) Patrick, De Burgo became Burke, MacMurrough became Murphy, Mac Shane became Johnson, 0 Ghrevy became Griffin, and O'Lheigh became Lee n /j rbe news|/to many persons that Gen. Lee, of Confederate fame,- like hosts of families the South, belonged to a famous Irish sept. The Fitzpatricks 'were

kings of Ossory. One other point: In no other country is there a record of [,. an aristocracy, in its major part, being reduced almost to the position of -a peasantry in a few generations. That extraordinary fact gives us the measure alike of the devotion of the Irish to their own ideals and of f the, deadly .efficiency of t the Penal Laws. Through it all a mass of genealogical ' treasure has come down to us, not the least prized of which are the records and heraldic devices of seventy of the leading families of Ireland. Thus it comes about that• many a young Irishman, controlling traffic in . some Americn city ; or swinging steel beams between i earth, and sky on some towering sky-scraper, is heir„ by ancient lineage to a coat of arms that would turn a ' Four Hundred ' dame green with envy. .