'Pon th' Dun @ 3:30am

There be more silver atop the ol' noggin now, than blond. My dearly departed mother used to describe the colour of it, in my youth, as dishwater blond. Hopefully referring more to the hue of it, than the fact that at the end of th' day it was full of dirt, grime and sweat from a day of play and work in th' barns and fields of a small (as most were then) dairy, where we lived, and worked, and loved, and fought when I was but a boy.

It sometimes seems that it's easier to sleep in the daylight hours, than th' dark these days. Much dreaming of odd and disturbing dreams of late...possibly due to weaning off of some of the meds.....possibly due to some message being sent, as I've come to believe.

Hopefully not a portend of evil to come, but of good.

More likely due to the influence of the full moon this night than anything else perhaps, for she shines halfway down the western night sky so brightly as to cast a shadow from the trees outside the window.

I thought I'd been prompted to rise and write down the images that were so much more than real in my head a short time ago.

At first I was haunted by a vision of having my truck stalled in the North Georgia Mountains while my children (still small and unruly in my dream, fully grown with families of their own in reality) were running about engaging in all kinds of mischief that I seems unable to keep them from.

Then a shift to a group tour of an ancestral home...perhaps in Ireland.....by myself and relatives both familiar and unknown. A royal place, full of tradition and items of history from many Generations. A royal welcome from occupants whose prestige and glory might have been behind them, but not forgotten.....but embraced, as might befit a house having seen better times, but determined not to forget a heritage proud.

Articles there were, from other times.....small and large. Histories and places of importance to none but family now, as succeeding generations, properly, place more emphasis on the here and now.

I've always been proud of my mothers, fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, for they seemed to be people of accomplishment and success, tho' they were but people of the soil for the most part. But then.......by necessity back then....most people were. While not, perhaps rich in money they were rich in land and cattle and a work ethic that provided for the need of them and their families... with a bit left over for neighbors and friends.

Dun

Scroll down to Dun here

Down, Dun, Don These prefixes all evolved from the Gaelic word 'Dun', meaning a fortified place. As Ireland has always had wars, there are many examples of fortified places. Donegal [Fortress of the Foreigners] (county Donegal), Dungannon (county Tyrone), Portadown [Port of the fortress] (county Armagh), Dungarvan (county Waterford), Downpatrick [Fortress of Patrick] (county Down).

Perhaps there is something to my night time wanderings....certainly it means a bit to me....what exactly, is hard to define. Perhaps nothing more than a memory of an e-mail to our family yahoo-group a few years back....


Mike Dunigan,
Pampa, TX
----- Original Message -----
From: Lee
To: Dunagans@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Dunagans] Digest Number 347

I used to go to Europe frequently my close friends who were researching their family history in England and Scotland. We spent many days walking through cemeteries and touring old libraries and homes. One year, we decided to make a trip to Ireland since none of us had ever been there. We visited several cemeteries, mostly as a joke, and to my surprise -- and theirs -- we never saw the Dunagan name or any of its many variants.

My friends began to seriously question my "Irish" heritage when we went to the National Heraldry Museum in Dublin and no where did we see the family name on its many displays. Disappointed and confused, I ask the security guard manning a information desk during the lunch hour where I might begin the quest. Something was wrong, and I wanted to find out the truth. Was Dunagan an Irish name or not?

The guard directed me to the National Library just up the street. While my friend and his wife went shopping, I went on a card catalogue hunt. Much to my surprise, an hour or so into my quest, I found a reference to an unpublished manuscript from the 1940's. I asked to see it and after going through the security procedures expected in such a place, I found my self in a small area with a microfilm to read. The original, I was told, could not be viewed.

After reading for an hour or more, I found it was far more than I could digest in one sitting. The writer, a Dunagan of one faction or another, had set forth a rough outline of the Dunagan family (Dunagan is one of the official spellings of the name recognized by the Irish government and Heraldry office; there are many variants as has been discussed in this forum). The author had traced the family to its earliest origins which lay in the fertile soils of four separate corners of Ireland. The earliest known patriarch of the family being Heremon, the 19th King of Ireland, the first of the Milesian line, who ruled for 15 years and 5 months from the "year of the World 2933" (approximately 888 A.D.).

I immediately went to the Library's main desk and inquired as to how I could obtain a copy of this intriguing document. The Head Librarian frowned. "I'm afraid that's almost impossible, " she said. "This is an original manuscript that was commissioned by the Irish Government and without the express consent of the Chief Herald of Ireland, I'm afraid it can't be copied or published. And, unfortunately," she added, "Permission is seldom granted in such matters."

"How do I try and get permission?" I persisted.

"You must file a formal petition with the Chief Herald's Office, just down the street. It could take months to get turned down." she replied smiling.

Back down the street I trudged to the same museum I had left with disappointment earlier that day. As I approached the same guard who had been there earlier, I calmly explained to him my situation. He listened intently and then, without saying a word, rose and departed through a door behind his station. Paperwork, I thought, He's gone to get mounds of paperwork. A few moments later a man comes through the door followed by a herd of others who are primping and pampering him -- one applying make-up. The man introduces himself as the Chief Herald of Ireland and explains that he is about to start a BBC filming but that when he heard my request, he wanted to meet with me.

Taking me upstairs to his office, where his staff had already assembled a flurry of maps and documents, the Chief Herald explained to me that the Dunagan family was all but extinct in Ireland even though it was one of the country's oldest families. Four clans had ruled Ireland as Princes in the early Celtic days. He pointed to maps and showed me where to visit. He outlined Abbeys and ruined castle sites, churches and battlefields. Dunagans are still buried in the walls of the ruined Cathedral of Limerick dating from the rule of Mary, Queen of Scots and Cromwell.

Many early writings give the family history, or parts of it:
The poems of O'Huidrin in the early 1400's praises the family:

Of the race of Conaire [an early Dunagan] the hero
Let us speak, of the Chiefs of Muscraighe (600)
A hoast whose seat is the fine land,
The land of Mairtine of Munster.

Muscraighe Mitine (602) the great
O'Floinn obtained, just in his battle host;
A valiant array who obtain away,
O'Maolfabhail is over it.

Oh Aadna (603) who bestowed cows has got
The wide Muscraighe Luchra; (604)
A tribe of fine and high renown
about the salmon-fall Abhain Mor.

The territory of O'Donnagain, certainly
is the great Muscraighe of the Three Plains (605)
with the host of the flock abounding Iaraam (606)
Host of the sunny land of vowed deeds.

Muscraighe Theithirne (609) the Mighty
Is hereditary to O'Cuirc, as a just man;
O'Maoilbloghain (610) important in the territory
Has tilled the land of fine sods.

Over Muscraighe Tire (615) the warm
Are two dynasts of best nobility;
O'Donghalaigh (614) and O'Fuire also (615)
Of the flesh plain of the flowery smooth border.

Almost every quatrain of this poem has a reference to one of the four clans of Dunagans who forged early Ireland. Muscraighe of the Three Plains was a territory that King John granted from the lands of Muskerry Donegan to William de Barry. Muscraighe Tire comprises the present Barony of Lower Ormond and a part of that of Upper Ormond in the County Tipperary. The Chiefs of the clans of Tipperary and Waterford were O'Donegan or Dongan, Princes of Aradh, of the race of Heremon. And it goes on and on..

The family has a rich history, no matter how we spell the name today. The earliest known spelling was MacDonnegain or MacDonnegain, angelized to Donagan or Dungan, from the ancient Chiefs of the County of Limerick.

Happy Hunting!1

H. Lee Dunagan, AIA
Architect
Mineral Bluff, GA USA
----- Original Message -----
From: gfdunigan@aol.com
To: Dunagans@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Dunagans] Digest Number 347

Hey Dick
Maybe we should all change the spelling to the correct way.. DUNIGAN..

My family name is spelled the same back 5 generations. On my gg grand father who came over from Ireland spelled it Dunigan. His death cert had his father Edward listed with the same spelling. If the name was changed it was changed in Ireland. We think they lived in County West Meath, which is in the heart of the country.
Im told there are no Dunigans spelled our way left in Ireland. I also have a old registry of Dunigans from all over the USA by state and by other countries and there are none listed in Ireland.

Just a FYI

George

George Dunigan
George Dunigan Sr
John Jr
John Sr
Bernard
Edward.
Dick,

I also ditto "Learning something new each time you
post"

When I first started to research my Donegan/Dunnagan
roots, I ran into the same problem. My mother said
that my GGrandmother Pennina spelled it Dunnegan, I
couldn't find her anywhere. The line seemed to stop
there...till I discovered my GGGrandfather George
Washington Donegan, was the father of Pennina. Well
after a brief period of happiness, I was 'stuck'
again. Eventually I found out that George had changed
it from his father's spelling. George's father being
James Henderson Dunnagan. I too have rode the
Dunnegan/Donegan/Dunnagan merry-go-round!

We need to be reminded of where we came from ......from time to time....to keep us humble sometimes, and sometimes, to lift us back up.

I prefer @ this early hour (4:47 am) to think on the later.

An so....back to sleep for a bit......in the smaller brown rocking recliner, with my Georgia Cattleman's wall rug pulled up over me....for if I sneak back into the bed the wife...sensing my return, will, no doubt, get up at her usual very early hour... and she needs her rest.

Soon, a new dawn will break.