Hello Brandon and any other Conrys/O'Mulconrys etc reading, have you tested your Y-DNA (male line DNA) ? There are two of us who have done the Big Y 700, and it has revealed some interesting things. My kit is on Family Tree as 218112 and on gedmatch as T392867.
Our SNP is not related to the Connachta/Ui Neill and instead is the S-5488 branch of DF-21, specifically A-935. S-5488 formed about 3900 years before present or 1900 BC, while A-935 formed about 2000 years ago, or beginning of the common era.
S-5488 is the SNP carried by the Chieftains of Clare, descended from Corc, one of three triplet sons of Fergus mac Roich and Queen Meadhbh of Connacht. A-935 is carried by the Marrinans, who claim descent from Mannanan mac Lir, who seems likely to have also been our ancestor.
People are right about Ballymulconry being Cloonahee, Cluain na hOidhche, etc... near Strokestown, but they are wrong about it being the chief seat of the O'Maolchonaires, if they had one it was Cluain Plocain, whose location was elusive until the late Dr. Ben Hazard discovered it, that is between Elphin and Carrick-on-Shannon.
The O'Maolchonaire name may have originated in Roscommon, but at least according to tradition, the O'Maolchonaires migrated from South Teffia, where the claimed ancestor of the O'Maolchonaires, Maine has been exhumed and the remains are held awaiting a suitable genetic study. If his remains test S-5488 or M-222+ we will know more certainly whether Maine was fakely attached to the Ui Neill or if he was given as our ancestor to disguise our pedigree.
Their attachment was to the Connachta and Clonmacnoise, and it is not unlikely our true ancestors were the famous judges Flaithri and his son Fithal. In any event, the chief Ollamhs of History were stated by Mac Firbis to have been drawn from three or four sons of the King of Connacht, in the period just following their era.
The Ui Neill sprung from the Connachta shortly after this point, and this arrangement became national when the Kings of the South expelled all the poets in the time of Colm Chille, and the sons of Niall conquered Ulster. It is recorded by Mac Firbis, the Four Masters and others, that the O'Maolchonaires were first in dignity and rank among them, Mac Firbis second. The Mac Con Midhes, ollamhs to the O'Neills at a later period are merely a branch of the same family, two brothers who llived circa 800 AD whose descendants became the Cineal Suibhneach and Cineal Neachtain before adopting surnames.
Mahon Bodhar O'Maolchonaire "took" Cluain Plocain in 1232, whether Cluain na hOidhche had been their main property before is uncertain, but following this the majority of their most important manuscripts compiled on their own properties were written at Cuain Plocain. Nonetheless, despite not being a particularly numerous family, throughout the middle ages the family spread into various parts of the country establishing schools.
My branch were from the parish of Kilmacumsy north of Elphin, just west of where Cluain Plocain was, originally the townland of Runnabull, documents show members of the family living at Cluain Plocain in one document and Cluain na hOidhche in another during the late 1500s around the time of the Composition of Connacht, when the English seized most of the properties of the Irish in that province.
Rian
