Uí Néill
The Uí Néill · the descendants of Niall
Uí Néill, in English The Uí Néill, said ee NAY-il. A ruling kindred.
The most successful family in early Ireland, north and south, and the reason Tara means what it means.
The name
the descendants of Niall
Where
Two blocs: the northern Uí Néill across Donegal, Tyrone and Derry, and the southern Uí Néill in Meath and Westmeath.
In today's counties: Tyrone (Tír Eoghain), Donegal (Dún na nGall), Meath (An Mhí), Westmeath (An Iarmhí), Londonderry (Doire).
When it mattered
They held the kingship of Tara, on and off, from the fifth century to the eleventh.
The Uí Néill traced themselves to Niall Noígíallach, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and from the fifth century they took and kept the best land in the north and the midlands. They were never a single kingdom. They were a web of related dynasties that agreed, roughly, to take turns.
What they really held was the kingship of Tara, and they worked hard to make that mean the kingship of Ireland. For six hundred years the title alternated between the northern branch, mainly Cenél nEógain, and the southern branch, mainly Clann Cholmáin, and for most of that time no outsider got a look in.
The run ended with Brian Bóruma, a Munsterman with no Uí Néill blood, who took the title by force in 1002 and proved it could be taken.
Where the usual story goes wrong
Niall himself sits on the edge of history. He is placed around the turn of the fifth century, but what is told about him comes from much later writing, and the nine hostages are a story rather than a record.
What is left of the name
Ó Néill, the surname, is a later offshoot from a tenth century Niall, not from the Niall the dynasty is named for.
Names out of it
Families on this site that belong to The Uí Néill. A surname is not a pedigree, and plenty of people carry these names for reasons that have nothing to do with the old kingdom.
- O’Neill (Ó Néill)
- O’Donnell (Ó Domhnaill)
- McLoughlin (Mac Lochlainn)
Next to it
- Cenél nEógain (Tyrone)
- Cenél Conaill (Tirconnell)
- Mide (Meath)
- Airgialla (Oriel)