A Tribe of Owney

The people of Ua h-lfearnain appear first as a separate sept in a territory called Muintir Ifernan, now Kilnabov, near Corofin, Co.

Clare. It was probably early in the tenth centu-ry that the O~Hiffernans, as they would now be called, crossed the Shannon, south-east to Uaithne beag (Owneybeg, in County Limerick').1 Soon, in 964, another descendant of CQrmac Cas, Mahon, would become king in Cashel, followed by his brother Brian Boru who finally came to be acknowledged as High King of all Ireland, the first and the last.