The Harringtons of Templederry, Tipperary
The Harringtons of Templederry, Tipperary
(Thank you to local Templederry historian Matt Ryan, Marian Harrington of Templederry and Peter O'Flanagan, grandson of Ellen Mary O'Sullivan, a researcher of Templederry O'Sullivan connections for much of the information in this post)
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| Templederry (red) and Hingerty locations in the area (yellow) |
Background:
On New Year's Eve 1602 Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare led 1000 soldiers and followers out of Glengarriff, Cork to escape certain massacre. They were attempting to reach sanctuary at Leitrim.
Among the marchers were the clan chief O'Hingerdell, his brother and an unknown number of O'Hingerdell clan members.
The marchers were constantly attacked and harried along the way and suffered many privations due to lack of food and the harsh wintery conditions.
Fourteen days later, only 35 people (including 1 woman) made it to safety in Leitrim.
Others had died or were left for dead along the way. Some may have deserted and others may have been left hidden in forests for their safety.
As he moved through Tipperary, O'Sullivan kept to the high ground using the cover of the forest and keeping well clear of settlements with garrisons. The exact route of the March in the Templederry section is unknown. The next stopping point after the Templederry area was the church at Latteragh located on a hill visible from and directly in line with Templederry.
The area around Templederry at the time of the March, early 1603, would have been thick forests and bogs and high hills. Much of this land would have been 'uncontested land', that is, land not claimed or at least not used by others for agriculture due to its inaccessibility and difficulty in farming.
It would have been a perfect location for O'Sullivan to leave behind women and children and wounded men. They could hide in the inaccessible forest located approximately 1500 feet above sea level.
Looking today at the well tended green fields it is difficult to imagine this area being wild and inaccessible and heavily wooded. However the height of the hills is very noticeable in relation to other parts of Tipperary which offer wide open fertile plains. I was told that this area of Tipperary has the highest density of population for a mountainous area in Ireland.
The Harringtons of Templederry:
The locals believe that O'Sullivan made the decision to leave some of the marchers behind in the forests around what would later become Templederry.
They can list 7 or 8 family names in the area whose origins are in south west Cork and who hold the tradition of being part of the O'Sullivan March, including one family of O'Sullivans.
Further, they can name another 6 or 7 families who hold Ulster (Ultacht) names who would have joined in with the Battle of Kinsale in Cork and who may well have been mercenaries paid by O'Sullivan for the battle, to protect the March and then to protect those he left behind in Templederry.
While O'Sullivan had little in the way of food for the marchers, he did hold Spanish gold and thus the payment of mercenaries was well within his capabilities.
It would be unlikely for this plan to safeguard these families to have been noted in the account written by O'Sullivan's nephew after the March. To name the location and the families would have compromised their safety and their chances of survival.
The Harrington family in Templederry, Tipperary, Ireland have always known of their connection to the Great March of the O'Sullivans.
Their family nickname, used by the locals over many generations, "The Bears", is a reference to Donal Cam O'Sullivan Beare the clan chief of the powerful O'Sullivan Beare clan of the Beara Peninsula in south west Cork.
Harrington headstones in the local cemetery date back to the 1700s with headstones for William Harrington, his son (?) William and grandson (?) Edmund Harrington 1830-1907.
(Note: It is rare in Ireland for there to be headstones prior to these dates- graves were either unmarked, or marked with a simple un-carved local bolder/rock.)
The Templederry Harrington family can prove their connection to their current farm back to the Tithe Applotments of 1823 and Griffith's Valuations in the 1850s.
Further, a field located high on the hill above Templederry has always been called "Harrington's field", even though the family now farm lower down in the valley.
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| Ryan's field to the left and Harrington's field to the right |
The O'Sullivan Family of Templederry:
The descendants of the O'Sullivan family of Templederry can best remembered by the three adjoining headstones in the Old Cemetery (The Protestant Church Cemetery).
1. Daniel O'Sullivan 1805-1855
2. Daniel's daughter Miss Ellen O'Sullivan 1850- 1918- School teacher in the local school 1866- 1913.
3. Daniel's grand daughter Ellen Mary 1882-1922 who married P.J O'Flanagan, who taught in the local school 1899-1933.
Daniel's son Philip emigrated to Chicago in 1883 with his wife Margaret (nee Harold) and sons Daniel and James. they left Ellen behind to be reared by her Aunt Ellen. They are all buried in Chicago and neither sons had any heirs.
Daniel senior had a daughter Mary who married Patrick Mooney. She lived with her brother in Chicago but there are no further records for her. Another son Thomas, born in 1846 but there are no further records for him.
They had a family oral tradition of having arrived with the March.
Family names of Ellen, Philip and Daniel have links back to the O'Sullivan Beara clan.
Further, there was a Daniel Shulevan and a John Shulevan listed in the parish of Clogher in the Hearth Tax Lists of 1666.
Later, a Sullivan was listed as farming land in nearby Cloghinch in the Tithe Applotments of 1834 and Griffiths evaluations in the mid 1850s.
No other O'Sullivan families are listed in these records in the area.
So, what has this got to do with our Hingertys of Tipperary?
Having found the YDNA link between living Hingerty males and living Cork Harringtons, the Elizabethan Fiants of the late 1500s that link the names O'Hingerdell and Harrington in Cork (as aliases to each other) and McLysaght's assertion that Hingerty and Harrington are both Anglicisations of the clan name O'Hingerdell, we can surmise that we were all (Hingerty and Harrington) once located in the Bantry Bay area of Cork.
The townland of Kippaghingerghill lies right near Glengarriff and it is likely that the Marchers walked through 'our' townland at the start of their northerly trek.
The clan chief O'Hingerdell and his brother are mentioned in the account of the March and later in pension applications to the King of Spain made by O'Sullivan on behalf of his companions.
If the Harringtons of Templederry are the descendants of a family left behind by O'Sullivan would it not then seem likely that our Hingertys, who we find farming in a similar area in the 1800s, are also the descendants of those left behind?
Could the same be said of the Hingertys located in the 1800s further north around Tullamore, Monsea, Roscrea, and Modreeny? Did they leave the March later than the Templederry O'Hingerdell/Harringtons as the March headed further north, or did they migrate there from the Templederry area over the following two hundred years?
What of the couple of Hingerty households in the 1700s in Abington, Limerick and near by Cullen, Tipperary? Did they leave the March before it reached Templederry? Or did they migrate north from ravished Cork in the years after the March?
Further, looking at the Religious Survey of the mid 1600s and the Hearth Tax Lists of 1667-8, the number and locations of Hingerdell housholds in the Cashel and Fethard areas could suggest that some O'Hingerdells left the March when they stopped at Donohill or Sologhod.
The lack of Hingerty references beyond these dates in those areas suggests that these households adopted the name Harrington rather than Hingerty.
Where does that leave us?
It would seem then that least one O'Hingerdell male left the March at or near Templederry and hid in and later settled the uncontested land on the forested hills and bogs near Templederry and his descendants are there today using the name Harrington and being the proud custodians of a family oral history linking them to the March.
Did at least one other O'Hingerdell male leave the March in northern Tipperary close to the Templederry area and his descendants Anglicised their name to Hingerty rather than Harrington?
Did other O'Hingerdells leave the March near Donohill or Sologhod and settle into the Cashel/Fethard areas by the mid to late 1600s to later move away, or die out, or change their name to Harrington???
Did other O'Hingerdell males who changed their name to Hingerty, leave the march earlier in Limerick or later and further north in Tipperary? Or did they migrate to these locations at a later date?
Where to next?
YDNA has shown the connection between the surname Hingerty and the surname Harrington in Cork. A Templederry Harrington is hopefully testing soon- this will indicate whether Templederry Harringtons match the Hingerty testers and/or the Cork Harrington testers and thus prove or disprove the Harrington's of Templederry's oral history. We await the outcome........
All available documentary evidence in relation to O'Hingerdell and Hingerty surnames seems to have been located, however there may be further documents to be uncovered and further analysis of existing documents found to date is always beneficial. Attempts will be made to find a further documentary evidence and to summarise the available documentary evidence to assist analysis by date and location.
Further research is needed to find if there are any living descendants of the O'Hingerdells listed in the 1600s (probably now called Harrington) living in the Cashel or Fethard areas today and recruit them to YDNA testing. But how do we find them???
Further research is needed to find other Tipperary Harringtons who may have arrived in Tipperary along with the O'Sullivan March and recruit them to YDNA test- however, once again identification and recruitment will be problematic.
Continue to make contact with researchers connected to the O'Sullivan March reminding them of the connections between the surnames O'Hingerdell, Harrington and Hingerty and advocating for the inclusion and recognition of all O'Hingerdell surnames in association with the March.
As always, there is more research to be undertaken.......
If you have an interest in Tipperary Harrington research, please make contact!
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