Donlevy is an Irish surname derived from the GaelicMac Duinnshléibhe/Ó Duinnshléibhe 'son/descendant of Donn Sléibhe'; a given name meaning 'Donn of the mountain', i.e. 'dark mountain'. The MacDonlevys were the hereditary rulers of Dál Fiatach and styled as the Kings of Ulaid, i.e. rulers of (east) Ulster,[1][2] in present-day County Down.[2]
History
Ancestry
The family's eponymous ancestor is Donn Sléibe mac Echdacha, who ruled as king of the Irish petty-kingdom of Dál Fiatach, as well as its over-kingdom, Ulaid, in the late 10th century.
History
The power-base of the MacDonlevys was Dál Fiatach, a territory which spanned south from the Mourne Mountains north to the River Lagan; at times they exerted control over the entirety of Ulaid (eastern Ulster; present-day counties Down and Antrim).[2] According to historian C. Thomas Cairney, MacDonlevys were the chiefly family of the Ulaid who were a tribe of the Erainn who were the second wave of Celts to settle in Ireland between about 500 and 100 BC.[3]
After the Battle of Kinsale in 1602, the sept migrated to the province of Connacht, where their name is now most common.[5][6] Some of the clan in Donegal adopted the surname Mac an Ultaigh, meaning "son of the Ulsterman", which was anglicized as McNulty.[7]
Donn Sléibe mac Eochada 1081–1091, the eponymous ancestor of the Mac Duinn Sléibe dynasty.
Donnchad mac Duinn Sléibe 1091–1095
Eochaid mac Duinn Sléibe 1095–1099
Donnchad mac Duinn Sléibe 1099–1099
Eochaid mac Duinn Sléibe 1099–1108
Donnchad mac Duinn Sléibe 1108–1113
Áed mac Duinn Sléibe 1113–1127
Cú Ulad mac Conchobair Chisenaig Mac Duinn Sléibe 1131–1157
Áed mac Con Ulad Mac Duinn Sléibe 1157–1158
Eochaid mac Con Ulad Mac Duinn Sléibe 1158–1166
Magnus mac Con Ulad Mac Duinn Sléibe 1166–1171
Donn Sléibe mac Con Ulad Mac Duinn Sléibe 1171–1172
Ruaidrí mac Con Ulad Mac Duinn Sléibe 1172–1201
Cu-Ulahd Mac Duinn Sléibe (fl. c. 1178)
List of physicians
Muiris MacDonlevy (died 1395) is the first member entered in the Irish Annals where they are listed as ollahm lieghis chenel Conaill, the physician to the Cenel Conaill, the ruling dynasty of Tír Conaill.
By his agnomens Paul Ultach or Paul the Ulidian, Muiris's father is also mentioned at this 1395 A.D. entry to be a physician who flourished both before and after Muiris.
Cormac MacDonlevy (fl. c. 1460) was an influential medieval Irish physician and medical scholar, who advanced Irish medieval medical practice by, for the first time, translating seminal continental European medical texts from Latin to the vernacular. His translations provided the then-exclusively Gaelic language-speaking majority of Irish physicians with their first reference access to these texts.[8]
Murtough Ultaigh Donlevy is recorded as being a physician under an entry for 1497.[9]
Donnell Ultaigh Donlevy, the son of an unnamed Ultaigh "ollav" to the O’Donnell in Tir Chonaill, is recorded as having been slain in the year 1567.
Owen Ultach (died 1586) was the son of Donnchadh. Considered throughout Ireland and much of Europe as the finest physician of his time, with his skills not only recounted by the Irish Annals and at the Dictionary of National Biography[8] but also by Stanihurst.[citation needed]
"Dyonisius Ultanus", the son of an Irish doctor, is referenced by Tyrconnell-born physician Niall Ó Glacáin as a patient he treated in Valencia.[10]
The Annals note further that the branch of the MacDonlevy, who had been the physicians, still existed near Kilmacrenan, County Donegal in the early 17th century.
Bell, Robert (2003). The Book of Ulster Surnames. The Blackstaff Press. ISBN978-0-85640-602-7.
Keating, Geoffrey (1983). Keating's History of Ireland. Irish Genealogical Foundation. ISBN978-0-686-44360-5.
Hack, G.H. (1901). Genealogical History of the Donlevy Family Columbus, Ohio. Chaucer Press, Evans Printing Co.
T. Moody; F. Mortin; F. Byrne (1993). A New History of Modern Ireland (Early modern Ireland 1534–1691). Oxford University Press.
Surname list
This page lists people with the surnameDonlevy. If an internal link intending to refer to a specific person led you to this page, you may wish to change that link by adding the person's given name(s) to the link.