19 February 1599 It had been eight years since the Ó Maol Phádraig name had last appeared in Cork. In 1591 Thomas Ó Maol Phádraig had been recorded at Dunbulloge in Muskerry, following the earlier appearances of the family among…
Since the last Cork post, the investigation has moved north through two further Ó Maol Phádraig records, adding more evidence for the family’s wider distribution and the range of environments in which they appear. This post now returns to Cork…
Sometimes there is no explanation. A record can show that something was happening without telling us why, and all that can be done is mark the pattern, follow it carefully and hope that another document eventually turns up to explain…
The journey through the Elizabethan fiants does not follow a neat geographical path. The previous Ó Maol Phádraig record carried the investigation deep into the south of Ireland; Fiant 4908 now brings it abruptly back to the eastern reaches of…
The previous Ó Maol Phádraig record from County Cork ended in September 1577 with Domhnall mac Conchobhair Ó Maol Phádraig among the followers of Donnchadha mac Cormaic Mac Donagh, one of the Mac Donagh MacCarthys of Duhallow. On its own,…
Every so often a record that has been sitting in plain sight suddenly demands another look. In this case it came from the excellent three-part study of the Ó Maol Phádraig name by Dr Mike Fitzpatrick and his co-authors. I…
Kilmainhamwood stood in a borderland. Although politically within County Meath, it belonged to the diocese of Kilmore, while the boundary of the old kingdom of Bréifne passed close by. Elizabeth FitzPatrick’s description of such places as borderlands is particularly appropriate…
One of the difficulties in reconstructing the history of the Ó Maol Phádraig family is that the surviving medieval records rarely tell us what members of the family actually did. They appear in ecclesiastical settings, around important churches and later…
For the Ó Maol Phádraig family, the years between about 1400 and 1540 remain almost completely hidden. The surname largely disappears from the surviving record after the opening years of the fifteenth century and does not emerge clearly again in…