My Irish Genealogy & DNA

12/11/2025

Pre-holiday offers

31/10/2025

It is been announced locally, that Paddy Meade, the newsagent will be closing down in .
Patrick "Paddy" MEADE (1940-2020) was born in in 1940. He was my wife's 5th cousin.

Paddy's mother was Mary Margaret O'NEILL (1917) of , d/o Felix O'NEILL of Ardkitt East. Felix's father was Felix O'NEILL (1842-1922) born in Derrimilleen s/o Peter, which was recently demonstrated to be connected to my ongoing O'NEILL DNA study.

30/10/2025

Special deal for DNA test kits with MyHeritage.
Log into your account and you can order for just €29 each. A great way to kick off that project by testing all your close relatives!

24/10/2025

Anyone who has tested with Ancestry can check their updated ethnic regions (updated October 2025). My wife's 100% Munster origins remains confirmed, with the same SW Cork regions dominating.

19/09/2025

Simplified overview of the West Cork O'NEILL DNA study showing approximate dates of townland occupation and lines of DNA evidence from arrival in the early C18th to the present day.

19/09/2025

Just completed the first DNA review (using Y-DNA & atDNA) of my wife's paternal lineage, the O'NEILLs, here in West Cork.

Thanks to many people willing to share their DNA results, it was possible to show that the O'NEILL families and branches, as accounted for in the old letter provided by a family member, rings true genetically. Until the letter, we had nothing to go on before the early 1800's, as is typical with Irish church records. The result is a pleasant surprise and again, a good indicator what can be possible with DNA.

In terms of atDNA we now know the descendant Reenroe townland families of my wife are related to those at and at ; all townlands north of .

The letter describes that Sean O'NEILL arrived with a priest from "after the Siege" (so late 1690's or early 1700's) and settled in then , with one branch remaining at Ballinard and other branches settling in , Knocks & Derrymilleen. The only non-proven DNA line is the one still at Ballinard, as there were no testers.

The Y-DNA was surprisingly helpful since is showed that this particular O'NEILL clan is from the sept , which can trace their male lineage historically back to the 5th & 6th centuries in Munster.

What no-one expected was the Y-DNA showing that the male line at Derrymilleen was related to the O'NEILLs who settled townland (next to Reenroe) from . Being only one mutation removed, it strongly suggests that one of the told 'five sons of Sean' (or a grandson) must have gone to Drimoleague, before descendants settled alongside their Reenroe cousins at Cashelisky.

Findings are reported in my column in .

04/08/2025

03/08/2025

More on my wife's O'NEILLs in West Cork.

Thanks to discussions with families that appear to descend from Filem Mor (Big Felix) we are slowly making headway into how the various lines connect. Some have kindly offered to do a DNA test.

Having spoken with the O'NEILL Y-DNA project on , they are agreed that the family belong to the branch which have their origins including as per the family stories recently revealed.

So after settling in ( near ) we now understand that branches settled at Reenroe, , , and also remained at Ballinard up to the present day.

There is still a problematic generation (5 generations back) that are described in the stories but don't quite fit the narrative of the individual lines. It is not entirely clear where they should be placed. So, if you are a descendant of O'NEILLs from these townlands and have information to offer, please get in touch!

22/07/2025

Ancestry recently introduced matches by cluster a new ProTools feature that clusters your matches together. And no, before you ask, this is not the long-awaited triangulation. Ancestry’s new match …