Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD: Part I

Abstract

Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD is a three-part series, which provides an account of all known individual Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics in the late medieval era and details their temporalities, occupations, familial associations, and broader networks. The ultimate goal of the series is the full contextualisation of all available historical records relating to Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics alongside the genealogical record that can be extracted by twenty-first century science – that being the science of Y-DNA. The Papal Registers, in particular, record numerous occurrences of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics, predominantly in the dioceses of Cill Dalua (Killaloe) and Osraí (Ossory), from the late fourteenth to the early sixteenth century. Yet, no small intrigue surrounds their emergence. Part I of Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD examines the context surrounding the earliest appointments of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics, which is in neither Cill Dalua nor Osraí but the diocese of Luimneach (Limerick). Once that context is understood, a pattern of associations emerges. A ‘coincidental’ twenty-first century surname match from the Fitzpatrick Y-DNA project leads to a review of the relationship between the FitzMaurice of Ciarraí (Kerry) clerics and Jordan Purcell, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne (1429-1472). The ‘coincidence’ then leads to an examination of a close Y-DNA match between men of the surnames Purcell and Hennessey. That match, coupled with the understanding that Nicholas Ó hAonghusa (O’Hennessey), elected Bishop of Lismore and Waterford (1480-1483) but with opposition, is considered a member of Purcell’s household, transforms the ‘coincidence’ into a curiosity. Part I morphs into a conversation, likely uncomfortable for some, relating to clerical concubinage, illegitimacy, and the ‘lubricity’ of the prioress and her nuns at the Augustinian nunnery of St Catherine's O’Conyll. The nunnery was located at Mainistir na gCailleach Dubh (Monasternagalliaghduff), which lay just a stone’s throw from where Bishop Jordan Purcell and Matthew Mac Giolla Phádraig, the first Mac Giolla Phádraig cleric recorded in the Papal Registers, emerged. Part I makes no judgments and draws no firm conclusions but prepares the reader for Part II by ending with some questions. Do the Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics of Osraí, who rose to prominence in the late-fifteenth century, have their origins in Deasmhumhain (Desmond)? Could the paternal lineages of Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics be, at least from the mid-fourteenth century, with the house of the Geraldine FitzMaurice clerics of Ciarraí? And, could some of the modern-day descendants of the Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics be those Costigans, FitzGeralds, and Fitzpatricks who are found under haplotype R-A1488?

Pátraic surnames in the Fiants and Patent Rolls of Ireland Part 1: a method of approach to mega-data, and a Mac Caisín case study

“…To extract maximum benefit from this article, 'Mac Giolla Phádraig Clerics 1394-1534 AD, Part I' (Fitzpatrick, 2021) should be read before this one.…”

“…Equally remarkable, and testimony to no small degree of dereliction is that those long considered the great scholars of Fitzpatrick histories -Shearman (1878), and Carrigan (1905) grant the fiants and patents scant, if any, attention. It is little wonder, therefore, that Pátraic-clan histories have been turned on their head in recent times by a series of articles that combine Y-DNA analysis with records from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries, which have previously barely seen the light of day (Fitzpatrick, 2021;Fitzpatrick & Fitzpatrick, 2021). Even so, to date, the fiants and patents have barely featured as part of the wholesale revision of the faulty, pre-2020, Pátraic surname narratives.…”

“…It is unlikely no coincidence that the rise of Barnaby Fitzpatrick came on the back of the rise in power of the Mac Giolla Phádraig clerics from the late fifteenth century. Deciphering the relationships between the Mac Caisín, the Uí Duigan, and the Mac Giolla Phádraig of Osraí, and other familiarly connected residents such as the Costagáin (Costigan, or Mac Costigan), cannot be achieved in isolation from church records and an appreciation of just how interwoven some clerical lineages were (Nicholls, 1970;MacCotter, 2004;McInerney, 2014;Fitzpatrick, 2021). And, in this regard, it is not useful to maintain a generalistic and monocular view that the Mac Caisín of Osraí were simply a 'medical lineage' -they were not solely that, and this aspect will be discussed further in the next section.…”

“…So it becomes a question of not if their descendants can be found by Y-DNA analysis, but what are the modern surnames of those descendants, and how might those 'masked' surname lineages have arisen? (Fitzpatrick, 2021). It has been mooted that Costigans, FitzGeralds, and Fitzpatricks under haplotype R-A1488 may descend from a line of FitzMaurice of Ciarraí (Kerry) clerics, who may not only have spawned Mac Giolla Phádraig clerical lineages but Purcell and O'Hennessey clerical lines as well (Fitzpatrick, 2021).…”

“…(Fitzpatrick, 2021). It has been mooted that Costigans, FitzGeralds, and Fitzpatricks under haplotype R-A1488 may descend from a line of FitzMaurice of Ciarraí (Kerry) clerics, who may not only have spawned Mac Giolla Phádraig clerical lineages but Purcell and O'Hennessey clerical lines as well (Fitzpatrick, 2021). And could this be merely the tip of the icebergcould the network of clerical lines be much more extensive?…”