Why Dr Richard F “Dick” Dowd is on this page

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 Ó 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 Ó Dubhda Country, which would become the clan’s standard reference on Tireragh for the next two decades.

See The Taoisigh of Tireragh for the full line of modern chieftains.

Heritage notes

Family root: Tireragh.

The directory threads Dr Richard F “Dick” Dowd back to the Ó Dubhda clan story via the surname-variants reality — the same family carried these spellings as it scattered. See the septs and the diaspora for the wider pattern, or the Clan DNA Project for the genetic connections being mapped now.