While visiting my ancestral home in County Tyrone, Northern
Ireland, it is impossible to escape the images of the bloody hand. It appears
in various forms, sometimes with lions, a fish, a crown or a knight’s helmet.
It can be found on the side of buildings, on flags, at sports complexes or in
pubs. And they all tie into the O’Neill’s family crest.
I wrote about the bloody hand in my latest book, Clans and Castles, the first in the new Checkmate series of historical books about my ancestors.
The scene takes place in 1608 between my ancestor, William Neely, and an Irish
lady named Penarddun who had sewn the Neely family crest for him:
Penarddun
slipped her long fingers under the wool and retrieved a piece of material that
had quite obviously been painstakingly constructed. In the center was a castle
with three turrets sewn in a grayish-black color, above which was the Red Hand
of the O’Neill clan.
“Do you know
what this is, lad?” she asked.
“I am afraid I
do not, Lady Penarddun, though I have seen the hand.”
“Aye, and I am
sure you have. It is the Bloody Hand of the Clan O’Neill. It is said that in
the days of the Celts, several great chieftains sailed across the waters. They
spotted the beautiful Irish coast and as their eyes fell on the magnificent
shades of green, they debated who would lay claim to her. Ah, but they were
powerful competitors, they were, and after great deliberation they decided they
would each row a boat toward the land and whosoever touched her first would lay
claim to her.”
She placed both
hands on her knees, her eyes staring into the forest and yet seeing something
miles and centuries apart. “So off they rowed, and it was a fierce competition,
it was. The weaker ones dropped back and seeing that all was lost, they watched
as two neared the shore. Oh, they were so close that none could tell who would
reach it first and as the final stretch was there for the taking, Niall could
not bear to lose that beautiful, precious land. So he reached to his axe and he
severed his left hand at the wrist and with his right, he tossed it to shore.”
“Oh.”
She smiled.
“Aye, and so Niall won, you see, for it was his hand that touched Eire first.
It was in the days before we were told we needed last names… So his descendants
called themselves ‘uá Niáll’ to mark themselves as the children of the
champion, and it’s since been changed to O’Neill. And there you have it.”
As she handed
him the material, he said, “You are too kind, Lady Penarddun. But I do not
understand what the Bloody Hand of The O’Neill—”
“Your ancestors, dear boy, were
descendants of Niall. You are related to the O’Neill clan.”
This was a bombshell revelation to my ancestor because
O’Doherty’s Rebellion had begun. Led by the last Gaelic Irish King Cahir
O’Doherty, clans that included the O’Neill, Maguire, O’Cahan, O’Donnell,
MacSweeney and more united against the Scottish and English settlers, burning
their settlements in an attempt to drive them out of Ulster. But Wills, who had
immigrated to Ireland from Wigtownshire, Scotland in 1608, was to discover that
four hundred years earlier, the Neely family had left Ireland for
Scotland—which meant he had come full circle. It also meant that he would soon
face off against distant relatives on more than one battlefield; one side would
fight to the death to keep Ireland Irish while the other would fight for King
James I of England to claim it as a colony.
The words on the Neely family crest mean “One Family,
Several Countries” as the family eventually immigrated to such diverse places
as Canada, the United States and Australia. Shown here is a modernized version
of the family crest.
I did not know what I would find when I began to explore
William Neely’s journey from Scotland to Ireland. I found much more than I
could have imagined because it was a fascinating period where cultures
collided; the Gaelic Irish population against the Scottish and English
settlers, the Gaelic Kings against Queen Elizabeth I and then King James I,
ultimately the Catholic faith against the Church of Ireland’s Protestants,
betrayal… and death.
Below is a trailer:
Clans and Castles, the first book in the Checkmate series is
now available on amazon in Kindle and Paperback, and will be in all bookstores
on June 1. Autographed copies can also be ordered from the author’s website.
p.m.terrell is the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author of more than
21 books in a variety of genres.
