The Following was a webpage written by Chris Callaghan
published on the now defunct website ARALTAS.COM (ie
the Irish for Heraldry.com) describing the Callaghan Sept of Arms. This copy was made on
the 16th of September 2018.
(O) Callaghan
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Callaghan Sept Arms |
In direct line
from Ceallachan (see note at the bottom of this page), King of Munster from 935
until his death in 954, comes the widespread family of O Callaghan. Ceallachan
was also Chief of the Eoghanact tribe which included the most powerful families
in Munster, including the MacCarthys. Ceallachan
became a folk hero and is the ancestor of many of the families which are still
in the County Cork area. Even further back than Ceallachan's time, there is a
manuscript in Dublin's Genealogical Office showing the tree of posterity of
Milo, circa 1400 bc, which includes the progenitors
of the O Callaghans and continues up to AD 1614!
There is also a manuscript that records a pedigree of the O Callaghan chiefs
and their vast territories, from 900 up to 1933. They were settled in County
Cork until about 1670 when, as with so many Gaelic families, they were driven
to Connacht.
Genealogists
believe the name Ceallachan is derived from the word strife. This is certainly
appropriate for King Ceallachan who, in the heat of his youth led his warriors
to ravage counties Meath, Kilkenny and Waterford, not even hesitating before
plundering the monastic settlement at Clonmacnoise. He it was who defeated Cinneide, father of the great Brian Boru, who was to drive
the Norsemen from Ireland and give his name to the O Briens.
From the
seventeenth century when the family dispersed, two distinct lines emerge. One
fled to Spain and have long since become Spanish citizens, while the other
lived for centuries at Lismehane, their mansion near
the village of O Callaghan's Mills in County Clare. It was through
intermarriage with related Westropps that they
consolidated their properties and acquired the additional surname.
Don Juan O
Callaghan (b. 1934), the O Callaghan Chief of the Name, is a lawyer in
Barcelona, Spain. Don Juan is in the direct line from Ceallachan who was the
42nd Christian King of Munster.
In 1641, just
before Cromwell's army forced many of the Gaelic landowners to flee abroad,
Colonel Donogh O Callaghan was a member of the Supreme Council of the Irish
Confederation of Kilkenny. Following the rebellion of that year, he lost his
property, and was outlawed. Another member of his family had preceded him
abroad, this was the Abbe John O Callaghan (1605 - 54), a notorious Jansenist.
Cornelius O
Callaghan (1742 - 97) of Shanbally Castle, Clogheen, County Tipperary, was created Baron Lismore in
1785. His son was known as the 1st Viscount Lismore and his daughter was the
mother of one of the Dukes of Devonshire, whose family owns Lismore Castle.
Father
Jeremiah O Callaghan (1780 - 1861) blazed a trail through Paris and Rome,
preaching vehemently against usury, rack-renting and capitalism. When he went
to London he was actively supported by William Cobbett, a reformer and
journalist. Eventually Jeremiah was found a congenial clerical post in North
America, where he earned the name "Apostle of Vermont", befriending
both the French Canadians and the immigrant Irish.
Edmund Bailey
O Callaghan (1797 - 1880) of Mallow, County Cork, studied medicine in Dublin,
Paris and Quebec. He dabbled in politics in Canada, which led to his having to
escape to Albany, New York, where he settled and practised medicine. He studied
the records of the Dutch founders of New York and wrote the first published
history of the city. There was no financial profit from this huge labour, yet
with his own money he published a second volume. He produced eleven quarto
volumes of State Records or Documentary History of the State of New York, 1849
- 51, plus an astonishing variety of other publications.
One of the
first Roman Catholics to be admitted to the legal profession in Ireland since
the penal laws were repealed was John Cornelius O Callaghan (1805 - 83). He was
a Young Irelander and was on the staff of the Nation newspaper. His great work
of 25 years, History of the Irish Brigades in the Service of France from the
Revolution in Great Britain under James II, to the Revolution in France under
Louis XVI was published in Glasgow in 1869 in eight volumes. He declaimed,
"I love, not the entremets of literature, but the strong meat and drink of
sedition - I make a daily meal on the smoked carcass of Irish history".
Sir George
Astley O Callaghan (1852 - 1920), a London-born O Callaghan who was the son of
an army captain, was the admiral who commanded the frigate that entered Peking
in 1900 during the rising of the "Harmonious Fists", commonly known
as the Boxer rebellion.
The O
Callaghan name is recorded extensively in the archives of Spain. In Germany,
James O Callaghan and his brother, Louis, filled the post of Baron and Grand Veneur (agent) to the Margrave of Baden-Baden. Their elder
brother, John, was a captain in O Brien's Regiment in the French army. Their
youngest brother, Cornelius (d. 1741), was a captain in the Ultonian Regiment
in Spain where he died at Oran, leaving an O Callaghan son.
There were Callahans who fought at Bunker Hill in the American
Revolution.
Genealogists
give scant recognition to women. To be recorded they have to be an heiress, or
have some special talent (or notoriety). In America there was Trixie Friganza Delia O Callaghan (1870 - 1955) who was an actress
and singer.
Rose Mary O
Callaghan Westropp of the Lismehane branch is
mentioned in Burke's Irish Family Records as having painted the great jockey
Pat Taafe on that most loved of Irish racehorses, Arkle.
Colonel George
O Callaghan (1864 - 1944) added the surname Westropp to comply with the will of
his maternal uncle. He was aide-de-camp to three of Britain's kings: Edward
VII, George V and Edward VIII. He was president of the Irish Farmer's Union and
a member of the first Irish Senate. His son, Conor John O Callaghan Westropp
(d. 1986), inherited Lismehane, but demolished it and
built a small house nearby.
In the 8th
Olympic Games in Amsterdam in 1928, Dr Pat O Callaghan of Kanturk,
County Cork, won Ireland's first gold medal as an independent nation in the
16-pound hammer event. He subsequently practised for many years as a medical
doctor in Clonmel, County Tipperary.
According to
Dr Edward MacLysaght, a former Chief Herald of Ireland, the Ulster O Callaghans of counties Armagh and Monaghan are a different
sept from those who sprang from King Ceallachan. He suggests their name was
probably originally O Kelaghan or Kealahan.
The O Callaghans are obviously still jealous of their ancient
lineage to judge from the clarification which appeared in an Irish newspaper in
1978: "Aubrey W. O Callaghan has not announced his engagement. The
announcement by Aubrey E. O Callaghan is that of his grandfather".
An entirely
separate family, that of O'Ceileachain, is found in
the ancient territory of Oriel (Armagh, Louth and Monaghan). They are found
using the family names of Callaghan and Kelaghan. The
Kelaghan spelling of the name is mostly found in
Westmeath.
Note: James
Callaghan, former Prime Minister of Britain was son of James Garoghan - who changed his name to Callaghan. So
"Sunny Jim" was not a member of the Irish O'Callaghans.
Heraldry
The sept arms
of O'Callaghan are
Argent in base
a mount vert, on the dexter side a hurts of oak trees, therefrom issuant a wolf
passant towards the sinister all proper.
Several (O)
Callaghan's have borne these, or similar, arms, some with the addition of a
crest and motto.
I can find no
record of a coat of arms belonging to the Kelaghan /
Callaghan sept of Oriel.
Chris
Callaghan
Note: All known
historical references, plus full explanations of the c.v. of Ceallachain Caisil, king of
Munster and eponymous ancestor of the O'Callaghans
under the title, "Father of All the O'Callaghans",
is available on CD direct from Chris
Callaghan for only 5.00
Euro, including postage (within Ireland). The text is in Word and pdf format
for easy reading and printing. It would be of much benefit to the multitudinous
sept