A genuinely multi-sept name, the best documented being Ó Maolchonaire — hereditary poets and chroniclers to the kings of Connacht, seated near Strokestown in Roscommon.
The Conroy certificate.
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Mixed Origin · Multiple Connacht septs
Conroy anglicises several distinct Gaelic names. The best documented is Ó Maolchonaire, a bardic family seated at Clooncraff near Strokestown in County Roscommon, who served as hereditary poets and historians to the kings of Connacht — Fearfasa Ó Maolchonaire was one of the scholars who compiled the Annals of the Four Masters in 1636. Separately, Ó Conraoi and Mac Conraoi, ‘descendant of Cú Raoi’ (cú, ‘hound’, and raoi, ‘plain’), and Ó Conaire, tied to a personal name meaning ‘lover of hounds’, both trace to the Galway Bay area.
A name that, purely by the accident of raoí sounding like rí, ‘king’, sometimes got Anglicised straight to King — one sept, Moycullen, even renamed their own seat Kingstown.
Irish form: Ó Maolchonaire
