Kennedy
also O'Kennedy, Ó Cinnéide
Of Ormond and the Dál Cais — Brian Boru's nephews.
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Kennedy
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Kennedy.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →What does the Kennedy name mean?
From Ó Cinnéide — descendant of Cinnéide. The name Cinnéide is Old Irish for 'helmet-headed' (cenn, head + éide, armour). The eponymous Cinnéide was Cinnéide mac Lorcain (d. 951), king of Thomond and uncle to Brian Boru — making the Kennedys collateral kin of the O'Briens and descendants of the same Dál Cais line. The northern Scottish Kennedys (Kennedys of Cassillis in Ayrshire) are an entirely separate origin and unrelated.
The history of Kennedy
The Ó Cinnéide were the second great family of the Dál Cais after the senior Ó Briain line, and held the lordship of Ormond — the country east of the Shannon in modern north Tipperary — until the Norman invasion. Pushed south and east by the Butlers (the Norman earls of Ormond) over the 13th century, they re-established themselves in the modern Kilkenny–Tipperary borderland and remained a substantial gentry family through the 17th century.
The American Kennedys of Massachusetts descend from Patrick Kennedy (1823–1858) of Dunganstown in Wexford, who emigrated to Boston during the Famine in 1849 and died there of cholera at thirty-five. His grandson Joseph P. Kennedy (1888–1969) became one of the wealthiest men in America and the patriarch of the political dynasty. John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), the 35th President of the United States; Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968), Attorney General and Senator; Edward Kennedy (1932–2009), Senator for Massachusetts for forty-seven years — the line from Dunganstown to the Senate is the most consequential Irish-American family of the twentieth century.
President Kennedy visited Dunganstown in June 1963, four months before his assassination in Dallas. His cousin Mary Ryan was still living in the family's original cottage. The visit ended with what Kennedy called 'the warmest welcome I have ever had anywhere in my travels' — the Dunganstown cottage is now a small museum, and the family farm is still worked by Kennedys.
Notable bearers of the Kennedy name
- John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) — 35th President of the United States
- Robert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) — Attorney General, US Senator
- Edward 'Ted' Kennedy (1932–2009) — US Senator for Massachusetts
- Jamie Kennedy (b. 1970) — actor