O’Neill is one of the most ancient and royal of all Irish surnames – the name of the High Kings and the great chieftains of Ulster
O’Neill’s in Clapham holds sixteen hundred and fifty-eight reviews and a 4.4 – a large, solid sample – and it is part of the well-known Irish pub chain, bearing one of the most ancient, royal and resonant of all Irish surnames: O’Neill, the name of the High Kings of Ireland and the great chieftains of Ulster.
The royal name
“O’Neill” (O Neill in Irish) is one of the oldest and grandest of all Gaelic surnames. It means “descendant of Niall” – the “O” prefix in Irish names meaning “grandson” or “descendant of” – and the Niall in question is Niall of the Nine Hostages, a semi-legendary High King of Ireland who is said to have reigned around the fifth century. From this mighty ancestor descended the O’Neill dynasty, one of the most powerful and enduring royal families in all of Irish history.
The O’Neills were, for many centuries, the dominant power in Ulster, the northern province of Ireland – the great Gaelic chieftains and kings of the north, and at times claimants to the High Kingship of all Ireland. Few families in Europe can claim so ancient and continuous a royal or noble lineage. The name O’Neill carries, for those who know Irish history, an immense weight of antiquity, power and Gaelic royalty.
Niall of the Nine Hostages
The founding ancestor, Niall of the Nine Hostages, is a genuinely remarkable figure – part history, part legend. He was said to be a great High King who took hostages from the various kingdoms of Ireland and beyond (hence his name) as a mark of his overlordship. Remarkably, modern genetic studies have found that a very large number of men in Ireland – and in the Irish diaspora worldwide – share a common Y-chromosome signature that may descend from a single powerful individual of roughly Niall’s era, suggesting that a real, extraordinarily prolific ancestor lies behind the legend. Millions of people alive today may descend from the founder of the O’Neill line.
The Flight of the Earls
The O’Neills’ long dominance of Ulster came to a dramatic end in one of the pivotal events of Irish history. In 1607, after years of war against the expanding power of the English Crown, the great Gaelic earls of Ulster – led by Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone – fled Ireland for the continent, in the event known as the “Flight of the Earls.” This flight marked the effective end of the old Gaelic order in Ulster, and opened the way for the Plantation of Ulster, the settlement of the province with English and Scottish Protestants – an event whose consequences shape Ireland to this day. The O’Neill name thus stands at the very heart of the long, complex, often tragic history of Ireland and its relations with Britain.
The Irish pub
O’Neill’s, as a pub, belongs to the great tradition of the Irish pub that we celebrated at Biddy Mulligan’s in the Kensington survey – the warm, music-filled, Guinness-pouring institution that has spread across the world. Bearing one of the grandest of all Irish names, O’Neill’s offers the familiar warmth of the Irish pub: the Guinness, the whiskey, the music, the sport, the craic. It is a chain, and makes no pretence otherwise, but the name it bears is as royal and ancient as any in Ireland.
The pub
A large, popular Irish pub doing a fair 4.4 across a large and real sample, bearing the ancient and royal Gaelic name of O’Neill – the dynasty of the Kings of Ulster, descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages.
Verdict
Large, popular, and named with one of the grandest of all Irish surnames – O’Neill, the royal line of Ulster, descended from a High King and scattered by the Flight of the Earls.
Have a pint of Guinness at O’Neill’s, and raise it to the O’Neills – the ancient Kings of Ulster, descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, whose royal Gaelic name it proudly bears.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
