This name is Gaelic is Ó Daimhín and the ancestor who gave the
sept its name was Daimhín, died 966, the son of Cairbre Dam Argait, King of
Oriel. A brother of Daimhín called Cormac was ancestor of the Maguires and the
O'Devines, Lords of Tirkennedy. It was a leading Co. Fermanagh sept up until
and including the fifteenth century. Later, the power of the leading family was
broken by pressure from the O'Neills in the north and the Maguires in the
south. However, the name is still known in Fermanagh, although more common in
counties Tyrone and Derry. The name stems from the word damh, meaning 'ox', and
not from dámh, meaning 'poet'. The sept gave Clogher in Co. Tyrone its original
name, Clochar Mac nDaimhín.GLOSSARY
| Clan |
From the Gaelic clann which means literally
'children'. |
| Mac- |
From the Gaelic mac, meaning 'son' |
| O' |
From the Gaelic Ó, meaning 'grandson',
'grandchild' or 'descendant'; Ní is the femine form of Ó, meaning 'daughter' or
'descendant' |
| Plantation (Ulster) |
The redistribution of escheated lands after the
defeat of the Ulster Gaelic lords and the 'Flight of the Earls' in 1607. Only
counties Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh and Cavan were actually
'planted', portions of land there being distributed to English and Scottish
families on their lands and for the building of bawns. |
| Sept |
A family group of shared ancestry living in the
same locality |
| Undertakers |
Powerful English or Scottish landowners who
undertook the plantation of British settlers on the lands they were granted. |
| Gaelic |
This word in Ireland has no relation to
Scotland. As a noun it is used to denote the Irish language, as an adjective
to denote native Irish as opposed to Norman or English origin. |
| Erenagh |
From the Irish Gaelic airchinneach, meaning
'hereditary steward of church lands'. A family would hold the ecclesiastical
office and the right to the church or monastery lands, the incumbent at any one
time being the erenagh. |
|
