O’Dubhda — an ancient clan, still gathering
March 22, 2021 2026-04-26 23:50O’Dubhda — an ancient clan, still gathering
O’Dubhda
Reunited by choice.”
A kingdom on the coast, a clan still in motion.
The O’Dubhda — Ó Dubhda in Irish, O’Dowd or O’Dowda in later English — were kings of Uí Fhiachrach Muaidhe, holding the coastlands of Tireragh and Tirawley in what is now Sligo and Mayo for the better part of a thousand years.
Today we are a living clan: walking the old castles, tending the inauguration mound at Carn Amhalghaidh, sharing genealogies across a dozen countries, and gathering every three years on the shore of Killala Bay. Wherever your branch wandered to, this is where it began.
O’Dowd? O’Dowda? Dowd? Dowdy? You’re in the right place.
O’Dowd· O’Dowda· Dowd· Dowda· Dawdy· Dowdy· Doody· Duddy· Ó Dubhda
If your family carries any of these names, you belong to one of the oldest recorded clans in Ireland — the O’Dubhda of Uí Fhiachrach Muaidhe, kings of Tireragh and Tirawley. The spellings wandered with the emigrants; the line didn’t. Read the full story of the name →
Four doorways into the clan.
Homelands
Castles, abbeys, ancient sites and estates across the O’Dubhda coastlands — with self-guided tours and maps.
Explore Homelands →Genealogy
Trace the clan through Mac Fhirbhisigh’s 1650 Book of Genealogies, documented septs, and the Clan DNA Project.
Research your line →Rallies
Every three years the clan returns to Killala Bay. Fifteen rallies since 1985 — the next one is the 2028 Gathering.
See the rallies →Join the Clan
Add your branch to the living clan. Membership supports the research, heritage work, and the next gathering.
Join the Clan →Together, on this ground.
Every three years we gather on the Sligo-Mayo coast — walking the castle ruins our people once held, sharing research in the hall, breaking bread in Belleek. This is what membership looks like.
The 2028 Rally
Banquet at Belleek, castle tours along the Moy, a fresh inauguration rite on Carn Amhalghaidh, and the whole clan back on its ancient ground. The dates are set; save them now.
See the full programme →Add your branch to the clan.
Membership is how a volunteer-run clan society survives — it funds the research, the heritage sites, the gathering. And it is how your branch becomes part of the record, wherever in the world it ended up.
Four seanchas. Four ways into the story.
The O’Dubhda Challenge
Runners in clan blue trace a thousand years of Tireragh — 10k along the Atlantic, a half out into Castleconnor, twenty miles for the Dublin-bound.
Read the Seanchas →Castle-Hunting with Baxter c.1600
An Elizabethan spy-map draws a red banner across the Sligo coast — “O Dowdes Countrie” — and scatters towers we can’t yet name.
Read the Seanchas →How we became “O Dondey”
On Speed 1610 and Boazio 1606, the chief of the O’Dubhda appears on the Sligo coast under an unfamiliar English spelling. A story of sound and script.
Read the Seanchas →How Many Castles, Really?
The famous “twenty castles” isn’t the whole story. Tower houses, bawns, ringforts, signal towers — and we’re still finding more.
Read the Seanchas →From the Clan
A Note from the Clan
This site is a volunteer-run heritage project — built page by page from Mac Fhirbhisigh’s Book of Genealogies, Mac Hale’s O’Dowda Country, O’Donovan’s Hy-Fiachrach, the Landed Estates and NIAH records, and the lived memory of the clan today.
If you can correct a date, add a photograph, point us to a better source, or tell us where your branch came from, please get in touch. Every correction sharpens the record.
