Talk:Uí Néill

Year of Niall's Death
"a semi-historical High King of Ireland who died about 405." Most historians now tend to place Niall's death much further into the fifth centuary, so I'm replaceing 405 with c.450, the current educated guess. Fergananim

Family Tree redo
I'm recreating the Ui Neill family tree with Template:Familytree. Canæn 02:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

That's nice work! Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Unsavory part
Yeah, I added that part... I'd read about it in books for years. I'm still trying to hunt down an exact set of references. Makes me wonder how some traditions develop and stick... - Gilgamesh 23:40, 2 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It's from Giraldus Cambrensis, The Topography of Ireland Chapter XXV. How reliable Giraldus is considered I don't know. --Nicknack009 00:27, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Francis John Byrne (Irish Kings and High-Kings, p. 18) says "Obviously, therefore, he [Gerald] is not to be trusted implicitly. It is significant that he does not claim to have witnessed this right, but places it in a remote corner of the country where no conquistador had yet penetrated. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Giraldus could have invented the whole story, for we find horse sacrifice associated with kingship rituals among many of the Indo-European peoples. The asvamedha of ancient India and the eating of horse-flesh by king and people in Norway, to which even the Christian Hákon the Good had to submit, are obvious parallels. On the other hand, Adomnán, himself a member of the Tír Connaill dynasty, regarded the eating of mare's flesh with particular abhorrence five centuries before Giraldus." And so on. Angus McLellan  (Talk) 11:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

If you could read you'd see it applies to the Connails not the O'Neills. Sloppy and stupid, don't do it again. 83.70.219.86 17:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

A little conveniently it is about people responsible for killing G's relative & idol, Maurice FitzGerald, in battle. If you knew it "Connails" are Ui Neill, not just "O'Neills" (If Ui Neill is in fact a real group, not just a pack of lies of 8 C Cenél nEógain kings to garner respectability) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.217.76 (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Superior French Wikipedia version
Look at this: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famille_O'Neill —Preceding unsigned comment added by DinDraithou (talk • contribs) 23:39, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Dynastic Nomenclature
As I have stated in the Article on the Connachta, I believe that a review of dynastic classifications is in order between the descendents of Conn Cetchatach who later are designated as the Connachta, and the Ui Neill. I propose to rename the dynasty prior to the Ui Neill/ Connachta split in the late 4th to mid 5th centuries the Ui Moccu Cuinn or the Tribe of Conn. As the Term Connachta seems to be a political derivitive adopted to distinguish the rulers of Fir-ol-nEchtmacht from the Ui Neill descendents of Eochaid Mugmedon's 5th son Niall. This could be for for various reasons, such as origins in such a class concious society as Ireland was in that age. Hence the seemingly con-comittant change of the name of the western Coiced of the Island to Connacht at the time that Eochaid Mugmedon's sons dynasties rose to power in that region may reflect a statement about just who were and who were not the true descendents of "Conn" or the "Conn-achta". As the emergence of this terminology does seem to be a deliberate shift in dynastic emphasis for propganda reasons as to relationship and origins of the lately seperated branches of the decendents of Conn Cetchatach, it somehow seems in-appropriate to classify them as members of a dynasty whose name and it's meaning hardly existed prior to that time, or as members of this same "Connachta dynasty" proper, especially when the suspicion can be amply justified that this emphasis on naming may have been promoted to effect exactly the opposite result. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dalegar123 (talk • contribs) 03:08, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Descendants of the Ui Neill
Somehow, this probably should be worked into this article:

A Y-Chromosome Signature of Hegemony in Gaelic Ireland
 * Abstract: Seventeen-marker simple tandem repeat genetic analysis of Irish Y chromosomes reveals a previously unnoted modal haplotype that peaks in frequency in the northwestern part of the island. It shows a significant association with surnames purported to have descended from the most important and enduring dynasty of early medieval Ireland, the Uí Néill. This suggests that such phylogenetic predominance is a biological record of past hegemony and supports the veracity of semimythological early genealogies. The fact that about one in five males sampled in northwestern Ireland is likely a patrilineal descendent of a single early medieval ancestor is a powerful illustration of the potential link between prolificacy and power and of how Y-chromosome phylogeography can be influenced by social selection.

Argyriou (talk) 23:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Confused
I'm confused by this article consider Uí generally indicates a wife of an Ó Neil or Mac Neil. Has someone simply misunderstood this (American sources often mess this up) and created a separate article? Second Quantization (talk) 21:28, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Technically a wife is Bean Uí, with bean meaning "woman", but is usually dropped. In my limited knowledge of Irish, Ó and Ua are variants of the same term meaning grandson/descendant. Uí is the nomative plural of Ó/Ua and is used for clan names or tribal groupings, such as Uí Néill, Uí Eachach Cobha, Uí Tuirtre and Uí Ruairc etc. This article is on about the tribal grouping descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, which is known in nearly all academic sources and in various other places as the Uí Néill as that is the proper name for them, and is how they where referred to centuries ago. Mabuska (talk) 21:50, 15 June 2015 (UTC)