O'Leary

O'Leary is the anglicised form of Ó Laoghaire, a surname whose ancestor name Laoghaire means 'calf herder' — an occupational name reflecting the pastoral economy of early Ireland. The name is most strongly associated with County Cork, where the O'Learys were a significant Gaelic family in the barony of Iveleary near Macroom. The family produced some of the most celebrated figures of the Gaelic literary and political tradition.

Origins and History

O'Leary — Ó Laoghaire in Gaelic — derives from the personal name Laoghaire (anglicised as Leary or Laoghaire), meaning "calf herder," from laogh (calf) and a suffix denoting occupation. The name was borne by the High King Lóegaire mac Néill who reigned at the time of Saint Patrick's mission in the fifth century, and the O'Leary family maintained connections to this venerable tradition. The Munster O'Learys were lords of Iveleary — Uí Laoghaire — in County Cork, the territory around Macroom and the Coomhola valley west of the Shehy Mountains.

The O'Learys of Iveleary

The O'Learys held their territory in the mountainous interior of Cork through the medieval period as subordinate lords within the MacCarthy Mór confederation — the great Munster dynasty. Their territory was rugged and relatively defensible, which helped preserve their lordship longer than many Munster families. The Elizabethan conquest and the Munster Plantation of the 1580s, following the Desmond Rebellions, brought encroachment on O'Leary lands, though the family retained some holdings into the seventeenth century.

Art O'Leary and the Caoine

The most celebrated event in O'Leary history is the death of Art O'Leary (Airt Uí Laoghaire) in 1773, and the lament composed for him by his wife Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill — the Caoine Airt Uí Laoghaire. Art O'Leary was a young Catholic officer who had served in the Austrian Hussars. On returning to Ireland he refused to sell his prize mare to a Protestant landlord for the statutory price (which Penal Law imposed on Catholics), and was shot by soldiers near Macroom. His wife's lament for him — one of the great poems of the Irish language, equal to any elegy in European literature — preserves the tragedy and passion of the encounter. The poem was recovered and published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, becoming a cornerstone of the Irish literary canon.

Famine and Emigration

Cork was devastated by the Famine of 1845–1852, with the rural interior parishes around Macroom and Iveleary suffering alongside the coastal communities. O'Learys emigrated in large numbers through Cork port. The name Leary (without the O') was equally common in emigrant communities and appears widely in American, Australian, and Canadian records. The Gaelic Revival of the late nineteenth century saw many Leary families restore the O' prefix.

In the Diaspora

The O'Leary/Leary diaspora is concentrated in the United States, Australia, and Britain. In America the name is particularly common in Massachusetts, New York, and California. Cork city's emigrant tradition means O'Learys appear throughout the Irish-American community — in the Catholic Church, in city politics, in police and fire departments, and in the broader professional classes that the Irish-American community built across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Australia received significant Cork emigration, and O'Leary/Leary appears frequently in Victoria and New South Wales records. Canada — particularly Ontario — also has historic O'Leary communities. The name appears in Irish revolutionary history as well: Peter O'Leary (1839–1920) was a noted Irish-language writer in Cork, and various O'Learys were prominent in the Land League and IRB in the late nineteenth century.

Notable O'Learys

• Art O'Leary — 1747–1773, Cork Gaelic gentleman whose death inspired the great Irish lament Caoine Airt Uí Laoghaire
• Father Peter O'Leary — 1839–1920, Irish-language priest and writer, author of Séadna, a landmark of modern Irish literature
• Michael O'Leary — born 1961, Chief Executive of Ryanair; one of Ireland's most prominent business figures