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O'Donnelly

According to the latest available statistics there are not far short of ten thousand persons of the name Donnelly in Ireland to-day, which places this name among the sixty-five most numerous in the country. Practically all these may be regarded as belonging to the Ulster Donnelly sept - O Donnghaile of Cinel Eoghan. This is of the same stock as the O'Neills, the eponymous ancestor of the sept being Donnghaile O'Neill, seventeenth in descent from Niall the Great, ancestor of the royal house of O'Neill. Their territory lay first in Co. Donegal and later further eastwards, centred around the place called Ballydonnelly, Co. Tyrone, which was named from them. The place name Ballydonnelly also occurs twice in that part of Co. Antrim which adjoins Co. Tyrone. This area is still the part of Ireland in which they are most numerous. Their chief was hereditary marshal of O'Neill's military forces and they were noted soldiers in early times, one of the most famous of them, Donnell O'Donnelly, being killed at the battle of Kinsale (1603). Another, Patrick Modardha O'Donnelly, out in 1641, captured the castle of Ballydonnelly from Lord Caulfield. It was subsequently renamed Castle Caulfield. Another sept called in English O'Donnelly, but in Irish O Donnghalaigh, belonged to Lower Ormond in Co. Tipperary, but as there appear to be few survivors of it to-day it can be dismissed with a bare mention. In modern times prominent Donnellys are connected with the U.S.A. rather than Ireland the country of their origin, e.g. Charles Francis Donnelly (1836-1909), the Catholic lawyer; Ignatius Donnelly (1831-1901), politician and reformer; and the last name'd sister Eleanor Cecilia Donnelly (1838-1917), author of many Catholic devotional works.