The Taoisigh of Tireragh
April 20, 2026 2026-04-20 2:40The Taoisigh of Tireragh
The Taoisigh of Tireragh
From the end of the old order in 1595, through a silence of four centuries, to the nine chieftains of the modern revival — the line of O’Dubhda leaders and the stories they carry.
A Living Line
The modern chieftainship was revived by election in 1997 and by Brehon inauguration in 2000. Every Taoiseach on this page was chosen by the clan in open assembly and installed in a rite that has been performed on O’Dubhda ground for over a thousand years.
“O’Dubhda! O’Dubhda! O’Dubhda!” — called three times by the gathered clan, above the head of each Taoiseach at their inauguration, as it has been called on this ground since the Middle Ages.
The O’Dubhda Taoiseach is elected for a three-year term by the clan association at the triennial Clan Rally in Enniscrone. The ceremony follows the Brehon form recorded for the inauguration of Tadhg Riabhach Ó Dubhda in 1461 and preserved in the Great Book of Lecan — the White Wand passed through every hand in the assembly, then held over the new chief by the Brehon, and the new Taoiseach turning three times to the four airts to the calling of his name. At the same assembly a Tánaiste is elected: the deputy chief, designated successor, and almost always the next Taoiseach.
The page that follows lists the chieftains in order — first the last of the old order, who brings us to the gap; then the nine modern Taoisigh who re-opened the line; and last, the Tánaiste-elect who will be the tenth.
Twenty-one Taoisigh, 1344–1594
The office of O’Dubhda Taoiseach reaches back to the tenth century and the eponym Dubhda son of Connmhach. For the last two centuries of the old order we have reliable names and dates — these are the chieftains installed under the Brehon rite at Carn Amhalghaidh and Carn Inghine Briain in the generations before Tadhg Buidhe.
Source: Seán Mac Hale, Galraighe Dhubhda (1990), pp. 10–11. Dates marked d. are from the annals; italicised c. dates are estimated from the surviving Mac Firbis manuscripts.
Tadhg Buidhe Ó Dubhda · inaugurated 1595 · fl. 1601
The last Taoiseach of the old order.
Tadhg Buidhe — “the yellow-haired” — was inaugurated Taoiseach of Tireragh in 1595, the year after his brother Daithí Rua was killed by a Crown soldier at Castleconor. He was the last O’Dubhda installed under the full Brehon rite; within a few years the Gaelic political order was broken at Kinsale, and the great chieftainships of Connacht and Ulster collapsed into dispossession and exile.
Tadhg took an active part in the Nine Years War. In 1601 he led his army on the famous march with Red Hugh O’Donnell to the disaster at Kinsale. After the defeat, he is said to have settled in Kerry, where his descendants became known as Doody. No successor was inaugurated. The clan kept its name and its memory, but the office itself fell silent for four hundred years.
The silence ended on a Sunday afternoon in September 2000, when the White Wand was again raised on the same ground. The modern line counts itself from that day.
The Modern Line, in Order
Nine Taoisigh, counted from the first Brehon inauguration at Cathair Mór in September 2000.
Thomas J “Tom” Dowds
The first Taoiseach of the modern revival. Elected unanimously by the assembled clan at the 1997 Rally in Enniscrone — the first O’Dubhda election in four centuries — and formally inaugurated in September 2000 at Cathair Mór (Cahirmore Fort) above Lackan Bay, where the Brehon Conor Mac Hale held the White Wand over his head on the same ground where the ceremony had last been performed in 1595.
Tom’s six-year term established the framework of the modern chieftainship: the council structure, the diaspora outreach, and the rhythm of the three-yearly rally that the clan has kept ever since. Based in Scotland, he has also written the authoritative account of the modern gatherings — The O’Dubhda Gatherings: A History (forthcoming).
Dr Richard F “Dick” Dowd
Dr Richard F Dowd of New Jersey was elected Tánaiste at the founding election in 1997 and succeeded Tom Dowds as the second modern Taoiseach at Enniscrone Castle in September 2003 — the ruined stronghold last held by O’Dubhda forces in the seventeenth century, now re-chosen as the site of the rite.
His short, steady term consolidated the shape of the annual gathering programme and saw the publication of Conor Mac Hale’s fuller history, Inishcrone and O’Dubhda Country, which would become the clan’s standard reference on Tireragh for the next two decades.
Edward P “Ed” O’Dowd
Edward P O’Dowd of Chicago — an indefatigable collector of variant spellings and of streets worldwide named after O’Dubhda descendants — was inaugurated at Enniscrone Castle in September 2006 as the third modern Taoiseach.
His term extended the clan’s reach into new branches of the American and Canadian diaspora and brought the 1160, 1397 and 1650 manuscripts into the rally’s travelling exhibition for the first time — an artefact-and-document programme that remains a fixture of the gathering to this day.
Mícheál Ó Dubhda (Mike Dowd)
Mike Dowd — who takes the Irish form of his name, Mícheál Ó Dubhda, at clan events — was elected Tánaiste in Chicago in 2006 and inaugurated as the fourth modern Taoiseach at Enniscrone in October 2009, with the retiring Ed O’Dowd (then 84, the oldest man at the gathering) handing over the White Wand.
Based in Brisbane, Queensland, his tenure gave the clan’s truly international character its clearest expression to date, deepening ties between the Irish heartland and the Australian branch. He remains an active voice on the council and has written and lectured on the figure of St Patrick in O’Dubhda country.
Brendan J O’Dowd
Brendan J O’Dowd, born in 1965 and raised near Culleens in Kilglass — the heartland of the Slíocht Buí branch — was inaugurated as the fifth modern Taoiseach at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Enniscrone in October 2012. He is the first Irish-born Taoiseach of Tireragh since Tadhg Buidhe in 1595.
His three-year term, based in Castlebar, grounded the modern chieftainship firmly in its homeland. The 2012 programme opened with a visit to Rathcroghan in Co. Roscommon, where the stone marker for Daithí — the last pagan Ard Rí and ancestor of the O’Dubhda — still stands over the ring-forts, returning the clan’s attention to the pre-Christian roots of its line.
Andrew Dowds
Andrew Dowds was inaugurated as the sixth modern Taoiseach at the 2015 Silver Anniversary Rally — the first rally to count itself in quarter-centuries rather than years.
His term expanded the reach of the council and encouraged collaboration among O’Dubhda descendants in Ireland, North America and the wider diaspora. He curated two of the clan’s enduring self-guided tours — the W. B. Yeats Tour and the 1798 Rising Tour — and remains active on the council as a senior advisor.
Kieran O’Dowd
Kieran O’Dowd was first elected Tánaiste in 2015 — the clan’s first female Tánaiste — and inaugurated on the beach behind the Ocean Sands Hotel in Enniscrone, in sight of the harbour from which so many O’Dowds had emigrated, in October 2018. She is the seventh modern Taoiseach and the first woman to hold the office of Chief of the Name in the clan’s recorded history.
Her tenure, extended by the Covid-19 postponement of the 2021 rally, made her the longest-serving Taoiseach of the modern era. It was marked by the adoption of a written Clan Constitution, by the release of Remembrance Lanterns over Killala Bay for clan members lost during the pandemic, and by a modernisation of the clan’s global engagement that continues to shape the council’s direction.
Colum O’Dowd
Colum O’Dowd was elected Tánaiste at the 2018 Rally and inaugurated as the eighth modern Taoiseach at Enniscrone in October 2022, at the Covid-delayed gathering that brought the clan back together for the first time in almost four years.
Based in Ireland, he reinforced the direct connection between the council and its historic homeland. He opened the 2022 rally with his own affectionate lecture on the clan’s deep genealogy — “Back to Adam” — that traced the family through history, legend and scripture, and his term saw the clan’s website rebuilt as a standing reference to O’Dubhda history and heritage.
Sean O’Dowda Stephens
Sean O’Dowda Stephens was elected Tánaiste at the 2022 Rally and inaugurated as the ninth modern Taoiseach on Coggins’ Hill — the pre-Christian inauguration mound at Carn Inghine Briain, above Enniscrone — on Thursday 9 October 2025, the Silver Jubilee of the first modern inauguration at Cahirmore in 2000.
The White Wand was passed hand-to-hand through every person in the assembly before the outgoing Taoiseach, Colum, raised it over his head and the clan called his name three times across Killala Bay. A rowan sapling was planted at the inauguration site, echoing the rowan of Dubhros from which the family name descends — and the rowan planted at the first rally at Enniscrone Castle in 1990, so that the line between them is, intentionally, a living one.
Based in Toronto, Canada, Sean can trace his lineage directly to the medieval O’Dowdas and, through his O’Dowda line, to the High Kings of Ireland. His term will close at the 2028 Rally in Enniscrone.
The Tánaiste-elect
The deputy chief, designated successor — and, in the Gaelic tradition of tanistry, the next Taoiseach.
Terry Rochford
Terry Rochford serves as the current Tánaiste of the O’Dubhda Clan — the deputy chief and designated successor. In the Gaelic tradition of tanistry, the Tánaiste is chosen by the clan in the same assembly that inaugurates the Taoiseach, and stands ready to take up the White Wand in turn.
Terry is expected to be inaugurated as the tenth modern Taoiseach of Tireragh at the 2028 Rally in Enniscrone, closing Sean’s three-year term and opening his own.
Every Taoiseach on this page took up the White Wand from the hands of a predecessor still living — and every one of them, save Tadhg Buidhe, is still on the council. That continuity is not decorative. The longer the line grows, the more weight it carries, and the more the rite of inauguration means when it comes round again.
— Sean O’Dowda Stephens, Taoiseach
Explore Further
Other corners of the chieftainship section.
