Na hEóganachta
The Eóganachta · the people of Eógan
Na hEóganachta, in English The Eóganachta, said nah HOH-uhn-ukh-tuh. A ruling kindred.
The royal kindred of Munster, who held Cashel for four hundred years and then lost it to a people they had treated as vassals.
The name
the people of Eógan
Where
Munster, ruled from the Rock of Cashel in Tipperary, with branches across Cork, Kerry and Limerick.
In today's counties: Tipperary (Tiobraid Árann), Cork (Corcaigh), Kerry (Ciarraí), Limerick (Luimneach).
When it mattered
The kings of Munster from roughly the sixth century until the tenth.
For most of early Christian Ireland there were two poles: the Uí Néill in the north and midlands, and the Eóganachta in the south. The Eóganachta were not one family but a group of related branches, each with its own country, who passed the kingship of Munster between them and held the Rock of Cashel as their seat.
Unusually, they seem to have had little appetite for conquering the rest of Ireland. They ruled Munster, took tribute from its vassal peoples, and largely left the Uí Néill to their claims on Tara.
In the tenth century they were pushed aside by the Dál gCais of east Clare, who had been nobody in particular, and the kingship of Munster went to Brian Bóruma. The Eóganachta did not disappear. Their branches became the great Munster surnames, and the Mac Cárthaigh carried the old royal line into the Normans' Ireland as kings and then lords of Desmond.
What is left of the name
Cashel is still Cashel of the Kings. The name itself lives on in the surnames rather than on the map.
Names out of it
Families on this site that belong to The Eóganachta. A surname is not a pedigree, and plenty of people carry these names for reasons that have nothing to do with the old kingdom.
- McCarthy (Mac Cárthaigh)
- O’Sullivan (Ó Súilleabháin)
- O’Donoghue (Ó Donnchadha)
- O’Keeffe (Ó Caoimh)
- O’Callaghan (Ó Ceallacháin)
Next to it
- Dál gCais (The Dalcassians)
- Deasmhumhain (Desmond)
- Na Déise (The Déise)
- Urmhumhain (Ormond)