While adding my tree to Wikitree I found an interesting assertion, according to the research on that site, my 30x great grandfather was the High King of Ireland known as Brian Boru.
The path back to this Irish High King from the 11th century is on my Dad’s side. More specifically, My Dad’s grandmother, Ina Holden Starr’s father’s mother’s mother’s father’s mother was a McDowell.
Anna McDowell was born in Pennsylvania in 1758 and married Daniel Shoemaker (Shoonmaker in the original German). Anna’s father was John McDowell, son of Lord Robert McDowell.
John came to America from Dublin in 1735 with his sister, Jane. They left their uncle in New York City and settled in the Minisink Valley where Jane married Samuel DePuy and John married his sister Hannah DePuy. They had nine children, including my 6x great grandmother, Anna. John was known as a Scot-Irish Convenantor. Covenanters were a 17th-century Scottish religious and political movement that signed national covenants to protect their Presbyterian church and oppose royal control over religion. He aided settlers as they came from Kingston, NY to Minisink on their way to settle Kingston, PA. In 1754 he became a share holder in The Susquehanna Company, a land purchase of the Wyoming Valley for 2 thousand pounds from a Haudenosaunee (Mohawk) delegation. The local Lenape (Delaware) who actually lived there though, did not agree to the sale. The Penn family didn’t either. This sparked the “Pennamite Wars” during which John moved the family to Kingston Pennsylvania. He was one of the original proprietors of the township of Capouse, later called Providence. He died at his home in Northampton County September 7, 1779.
The McDowell family of Ulster, Ireland, descends from Scottish and ancient Celtic lineages that settled in the northern counties of Antrim and Donegal. At least one McDowell (Joseph “The Calvinist”) served in Cromwell’s army in the late 17th century but in 1704 the Episcopalian High Church Party alienated Ulster-Scot Protestants like the McDowells with their “Test Act”. (An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery) was a law passed by the Parliament of Ireland that forced all public officials to take the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper according to the rites of the established Church of Ireland. While it was aimed to Catholics, anyone who refused to conform was also banned from holding power. In 1717 a mass migration of Ulster-Scots to the American Colonies began. By 1775 a quarter of a million people had fled with their dependents, amounting to 15 percent of non indigenous Americans in the colonies. One voyage of McDowells to American in 1729 started out with 168 passengers and 86 died, including 12 of the 18 McDowells on board.
Lord Robert McDowell was born about 1680 in Raloo, Antrim, Ulster, Ireland. He married Jane O’Neil in Londonderry. He died in 1770 in Somerset, Pennsylvania.
His father was Thomas McDowell, born in 1828 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland who married Ann Locke. He was the son of Alexander McDowell of Glencoe Village, County Antrim who was the son of John Alexander McDowall born in Ayrshire, Scotland.
John Alexander, born in 1575 to Uchtred MacDowell, 10th Lord of Garthland in Galloway, began the McDowell family’s migration west. By 1595 he was living in County Antrim as a political exile. He settled in Glenoe, in the parish of Raloo near Lane where he met and married Irish native Mary Wylie.
John Alexander was in exile because his father was implicated as a conspirator in the “Ruthven Raid”. The Earl of Gowrie and some of his fellow-nobles seized the young King James IV and, for some ten months, held him captive, as the Presbyterians were convinced he was being influenced by the Earl of Lennox who was in support of Queen Mary and acknowledged Catholic concerns and so was considered a “Catholic spy”. They made the King sign a document banishing Lennox and Gowrie began passing laws against papists and making friends with England and distancing Scotland from France. But then the King escaped. Gowrie was beheaded and Uchtred faced charges of conspiracy. He did receive a royal pardon in 1584, but his son found it prudent to relocate to Ireland.
Uchtred’s mother was Margaret Campbell, Heiress of Corswall. And so we now leave the line of McDowell to chart our course to Brian Boru. Margaret’s mother was Lady Ruthven, born Janet Stewart, daughter of the Second Earl of Atholl, John Stewart (Ambassador to England, son of Sir James Stewart, Black Knight of Lorn). John’s mother was Eleanor Sinclair, Countess of Atholl, who is also a direct descendant of Joan Beaufort, Queen of Scots.
Eleanor’s mother was Marjory Sutherland, Countess of Orkney. Marjory was born in 1424 in Dunbeath Castle, Caithness, Scotland, her father Alexander Sutherland was the son of the Sixth Earl of Sutherland, Robert Sutherland. Robert’s mother was Margaret Mar, the Countess of Sutherland born in 1272. Margaret is the daughter of Elen (ferch Llewelyn), the daughter of Llywelyn the Great of Gwynedd in North Wales and Joan, Lady of Wales, the illegitimate daughter of King John of England. Elen married John of Scotland, 9th Earl of Huntingdon, in about 1222. He died aged thirty in 1237, and she was forced by King Henry III (her mother’s half-brother) to marry Sir Robert de Quincy, the son of Saer de Quincy. She is featured in no less than three books, including Child of the Phoenix by Barbara Erskine, Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman and Falls the Shadow by Sharon Kay Penman.
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth also known as Llywelyn Fawr or Llywelyn the Great, was Prince of Gwynedd from 1199 until his death in 1240. He was the son of Iorwerth ab Owain (also known as Iorwerth of Gwynllŵg) a Welsh prince of Gwynllŵg and Lord of Caerleon. His father was Owain ap Gruffudd / Owain Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1137 until his death in 1170, succeeding his father Gruffudd ap Cynan.
Gruffydd ap Cynan, born in 1055, was the son of Ragnailt Olafsdotter ingen Amlaib an Irish-Norse princess born in the Kingdom of Dublin. Her father was Óláfr Sihtricson Sigtryggsson also known as Amlaíb mac Sitriuc (Irish) or Olaf Sigtryggsson (Norse); he was the son of Sigtrygg Silkbeard the Irish-Norse King of Dublin and Sláine ingen Briain- the daughter of Brian mac Cennétig aka Brian Boru!
Brian Boru was a powerful High King of Ireland who united the island for a short time under his rule. “Mac Cennétig” means “son of Kennedy”. He later earned the nickname “Bóruma” (meaning “tributes”) from a local fort called Béal Boruma where cattle taxes were paid. There are tons of documentaries and books about Brian Boru. He was the youngest of 12 sons of the King of the Dál gCais, a tribe from what is now County Clare so it wasn’t destiny for him to take the crown. He studied Latin and history in a monastery as child. His father began uniting tribes of Munster. After his father died his brother took the crown, but then after his brother was betrayed and killed Brian became King. He then expanded his armies and navy and 1006 he attained High Kingship of the entire Island. He and his son were killed in 1014 in battle trying to put down a rebellion. His army won, but with his death the island’s tribes splintered.