O'Sheehan, a

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

- Irish

surname In many societies, a surname, family name, or last name is the mostly hereditary portion of one's personal name that indicates one's family. It is typically combined with a given name to form the full name of a person, although several give ...

Overview

The O'Sheehan (or, as is the more common anglicization, Sheehan) family is an Irish clan traditionally of

County Clare County Clare () is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster in the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern part of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, bordered on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. Clare County Council ...

. Part of the Dalcassian branch of families, the O'Sheehans themselves played only a small role in Irish politics, as vassals to the more famed

O'Briens The O'Brien dynasty (; ; genitive ''Uí Bhriain'' ) was an Irish Clan and nobility, noble house of Munster, founded in the 10th century by Brian Boru of the Dál gCais (Dalcassians). After becoming King of Munster, through conquest he establi ...

, who commonly became kings of

Thomond Thomond ( Classical Irish: ; Modern Irish: ), also known as the Kingdom of Limerick, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Clare and County Limerick, as well as parts of County Tipperary around Nena ...

and included the Irish legend

Brian Boru Brian Boru (; modern ; 23 April 1014) was the High King of Ireland from 1002 to 1014. He ended the domination of the High King of Ireland, High Kingship of Ireland by the Uí Néill, and is likely responsible for ending Vikings, Viking invasio ...

. According to historian C. Thomas Cairney, the O'Sheehans were a chiefly family of the

Uí Mháine , often Anglicised as Hy Many, was one of the oldest and largest kingdoms located in Connacht, Ireland. Its territory of approximately encompassed all of what is now north, east and south County Galway, south and central County Roscommon, an ...

tribe who in turn were from the

Dumnonii The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a Britons (historical), British List of ancient Celtic peoples and tribes, tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Cornwall and Devon (and some areas of present-day Dorset and Somerset) in the further pa ...

Laigin The Laigin, modern spelling Laighin (), were a Gaelic population group of early Ireland. They gave their name to the Kingdom of Leinster, which in the medieval era was known in Irish as ''Cóiced Laigen'', meaning "Fifth/province of the Leinste ...

who were the third wave of

Celts The Celts ( , see Names of the Celts#Pronunciation, pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples ( ) were a collection of Indo-European languages, Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient Indo-European people, reached the apoge ...

to settle in Ireland during the first century BC. The original form of Sheehan is síocháin, meaning peace or peaceful. This in combination with the prefix O', meaning 'descendant of,' could be taken to mean something like 'descendant of peace,' or 'descendant of the peaceful one,' though who this could be referring to remains unclear. Today, many Sheehans still live in County Clare, though others have since migrated to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and other countries, mainly as part of the mass exodus that followed the Great Famine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Osheehan Surnames Irish families Irish Brehon families Surnames of Irish origin Anglicised Irish-language surnames Families of Irish ancestry Roman Catholic families

Overview

See also

References