Publisher's Synopsis
With comprehensive indexing and 20 black & white illustrations, this revised standard paperback edition explores the genealogical traditions of the MacDonnell family of Thomond (North Munster, especially Co. Clare) for centuries BEFORE they took the surname Mac Domhnaill na Darach ('Son of Domhnall of The Oak').
Once considered lost, these are the genealogical secrets of the Celtic Iron Age and Migration Period. To tell this story, the author has accessed the mass of information preserved in the Irish Language since the 7th century in Ireland's most important genealogical manuscripts. These precious documents had been hidden away in a handful of collections since the physical and cultural genocide of the Gaeil in the 17th century, and were therefore inaccessible until recently to almost all Irish, their diaspora, and their genealogists. Happily, these Irish Language manuscripts have finally been set in type and published after waiting between 350 and 850 years.
Because this book uses and translates into English this ancient but newly-available genealogical tradition as it relates to the MacDonnell family of Thomond, it is the first of its kind about this family in the modern era.
Caveat - Mac Domhnaill ('MacDonnell') is the surname of three, distinct, unrelated sloinnte (extended, surnamed families): Mac Domhnaill na Darach of Thomond, Mac Domhnaill of Fermanagh, and MacDomhnaill of the Glens of Antrim. This book examines the pre-surname genealogies, history, myth and Brehon Law of the MacDonnells of Thomond.
Physical description - This is the revised standard paperback edition of 218 pages, 7 X 10 inch format, including 20 black & white illustrations and comprehensive indexing.
