The next assertion above made, that _clann Cuileain_ was also called _Hy na mor_, is untrue, for the name _Hy na mor_ had never any existence except in Mr Beauford’s fancy; and even if it had, the meaning given for it would not be correct, for _hy_ does not properly mean district, nor does _mor_ mean sea. The assertion that the chiefs of _clann Cuileain_ were called _Mac na mor aois_ is also untrue, for the name was never so written by any one except Mr Beauford. They were uniformly called _Mic Conmara_, as being the descendants of _Cu-mara_, who was chief of the _clann Cuileain_ in the tenth century; and the name _Cumara_, signifying _hero of the sea_, was first given to a chief of this family, from his being an expert seaman, not from his dwelling on the sea, for the _clann Cuileain_ or Mac Namaras were not located on the sea, or near the sea, but in an inland territory in the south-east of the county of Clare.
2. “CINEAL EOGHEAN, or _Cean all Eoghain_, from _cean thuath oll Eogh-an_, pronounced Connal Owen, or the principal division of the northern county of the Oll or Bolgæ, an ancient district in the province of Ulster, comprehending originally the present counties of Tyrone, Armagh, Donegal, and part of the county of Derry, being the ancient divisions of Eirgal or Orgall,” &c.
Here the name _Cineal Eoghain_, which had been translated _genus Eoghain_, _i.e._, race or progeny of _Eoghan_, by all the early Irish writers, is made to signify the principal division of the northern county of the Oll or Bolgæ. Let us examine how this interpretation has been wrested from _Cineal Eoghain_. In the first place, he spells the name incorrectly, though we cannot see that he gains any point by doing so; next he takes asunder what he conceives to be its component parts, first metamorphosing the word _Cineal_, which is cognate with the Latin _genus_ and the English _kind_, _kindred_, into _Cean all_, which he made to signify “principal division,” and resolving _Eoghan_, a man’s name, into _Eogh-an_, to make it signify I know not what; but as the four vocables thus obtained would not answer his purpose, he took the liberty of adding one more of his own coining, thus making five distinct words of the two original ones. But even allowing that these five vocables are legitimately obtained from the two original ones, I have still a further objection to them, for they do not grammatically coalesce, or bear the meaning he affixes to them, as there is no word among the five to express _principal division_ or _county_. And granting further that the five words thus formed could really bear the signification he gives them, it would not follow that the name _Cineal Eoghain_ is so compounded, while in opposition to the testimony of all authentic history; and we have the testimony of all the authentic Irish annals, the lives of the Irish apostle, and of the most ancient genealogical books, to prove that the great northern race called _Cineal Eoghain_ took that appellation from their great ancestor _Eoghan_ (the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages), who was contemporary with St Patrick, as did a neighbouring race that of _Cineal Conaill_, from Eoghan’s brother, Conall Gulban.