Genelach Dáil Cuinn Project™ Forum

As a proud descendant of the Uí Briúin Seóla, Muinter Murchada Mac Donnchada, let me be the first to welcome fellow Uí Briúin descendants to this forum. I hope this will become an active and fruitful place to explore our rich heritage.

John,

Thanks! No, I am not familiar with those individuals, but it was a common surname. The thing of interest to me is that Donnchad is usually translated as "brown warrior", based on the compound "donn" (brown) + "chad". But I cannot find anything that shows "chad" as meaning "warrior". The closest I can find is from Welsh, where "chad" is derived from "cad"; but in Welsh, "cad" means "battle" or "army". The equivalent word in Old Irish is "cath", which means "battle, fight" or "troop, battalion". But that still doesn't account for the reference to a single warrior. I do know there was some fluidity between the "d" and "th" (as in "this") sounds early on; but still...
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chad#Welsh
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cad#Welsh
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cath#Old_Irish

However, what I CAN find is "donn" + "cád ", or with lenition, "chád". This COULD mean something like "holy/noble/pure" "chief/ruler". That makes a lot more sense to me as to why it was such a popular name. A lot of difference in meaning by the omission of a simple "síned fada" or "acute accent" mark. Also "nn" was apparently a later mutation from "nd", so possibly the original spelling was Dondcád or Dondchád, depending on whether the lenition was used originally. IDK if this has any accuracy or not, but it sounds good.
http://dil.ie/search?q=donn&search_in=headword
http://dil.ie/search?search_in=headword&q=cáid

Admin wrote: Wed, 2020-Mar-25 9:18 am As a proud descendant of the Uí Briúin Seóla, Muinter Murchada Mac Donnchada, let me be the first to welcome fellow Uí Briúin descendants to this forum. I hope this will become an active and fruitful place to explore our rich heritage.

I’ve been placed under Uí Briúin Seola too, but specifically under Uí Briúin Seola “Vassals”, so I was wondering what that exactly means. As a “Reid”, it has previously been suggested (by DCG, I think) that we may have originally been “Ó’Mail Brigde”, probably among the Uí Maine. Thanks,
Francis.

Francis,

Welcome!

Please see the PM I just sent you. I hope that helps explain the label. If not please feel free to post follow-on questions here.