The O'Brien Clan

CONOR O'BRIEN

The O'Brien Prince of Thomond / The Rt. Hon. The Lord Inchiquin (18th Baron)

Conor O'Brien is both prince and lord. Simply said, he is chief of the O'Brien clan. But instead of living in the castle that was home to his clan for centuries, he lives adjacent to it, a telling sign of his place in modern times. While the older generation of his village still calls him 'your lordship," the days of high-court titles seem a thing of the past. "I don't think my father held me up to the moon and said "Brian Boru," said O'Brien with a laugh, imagining what a ritual for lordship would have been had he been born in a different time.
O'Brien is a modern man, uninterested in living the life conjured up by storybooks and legends. But as one of 20 remaining recognized clan chiefs in Ireland and a direct inheritor of the chiefships of the ancient Gaelic nobility, he does take his job seriously. "I'm trying to pull the clan together to learn about their heritage and to work for the good of O'Briens across the world," he

said. He has already established The O'Brien Clan Foundation and will open an office in North America by the new millennium to field the ever-growing number of inquiries he has received on the O'Brien name. He is also organizing a clan gathering, after having successfully attracted more than 300 members to his most recent gathering in 1992 - the first such O'Brien meeting in 400 years.
    Although most of the letters O'Brien receives are from long-lost clan members eager to meet a direct descendant of the O'Brien progenitor, Brian Boru (941-1014), who became High King of Ireland in 1002 A.D., he also receives a very different kind of mail. "I get e-mails that are quite blunt, saying 'Why should you be chief of the clan?" remarked the chief. "But I don't blame them, I like that they are interested enough to find out why."
    O'Brien is chief, he explains, because he is a direct descendant of Brian Boru and the latest in an unbroken male line that stretches back 1,000 years. And he may then continue to clarify that he is the 18th Baron of Inchiquin, a title that dates back to 1543 when Murrough O'Brien, the last King of Thomond, submitted to King Henry VIII, thus saving the O'Brien lands from confiscation. (Many other clan leaders were unwilling to submit to the king and lost their lands and titles.) Murrough's surviving heirs were given the title of Baron of Inchiquin. "We survived through a thousand years of turbulent Irish history because of a hugh amount of good luck in sitting on the right side of the fence, in marrying the right people, and in fighting on the right side," said O'Brien. "I am also proud of being a direct descendant of Brian Boru. He was the greatest king of Ireland - the nearest to unifying this country."
    The 55-year-old O'Brien was schooled at Eton College in England, and then opened his own trading firm in the Far East before returning to Ireland in 1982. He came back to become the 18th Baron and chief of the clan after his uncle Phaedrig passed away and bequeathed the title to him. Although the original Inchiquin estate of 1880 consisted of 28,000 acres, the land that O'Brien inherited 100 years later had dwindled over the decades to a mere 600 acres. Dromoland Castle (the third O'Brien castle built on the site since the original in 1470 A.D., home to O'Brien's father and uncle, was sold to outsiders in 1962, and is now a successful luxury hotel.
    O'Brien himself runs a guest house from his home, The Thomond House, 100 yards from the castle, and he and his wife, Helen, have two daughters, Slaney and Lucia. He expects his father's first cousin, Morrough, will eventually carry on his title, and in doing so will continue to uphold "a great heritage of the old Gaelic past."