Ó Caoimh

Rev Patrick Woulfe

Irish Names and Surnames

1923

Ó CAOIMH—I—O Keeve, O'Keeffe, Keeffe, &c.; 'descendant of Caomh' (beautiful, noble, gentle, loveable). The O'Keeffes, who are of the royal race of Munster and of the same stock as the MacCarthys and O'Callaghans, derive their name and descent from Art Caomh who was son of Fionghuine, King of Munster, and flourished in the 10th century. Donnchadh Ó Caoimh, the first to bear the surname, lived in the reign of Ceallachan of Cashel. The O'Keeffes were originally seated at Glanworth and possessed the district now called Roches' country, in the barony of Fermoy; but they were driven thence shortly after the Anglo-Norman invasion, when they settled in a district in the north-west of the barony of Duhallow, to which they gave the name of Pobble O'Keeffe, and where they maintained themselves as a distinct clan down to the end of the 16th century.

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