Nolan
also O'Nolan, Ó Nualláin
Inaugurators of Leinster — chiefs of Forth in Carlow.
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Nolan
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Nolan.
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 Nolan name mean?
From Ó Nualláin — descendant of Nuallán ('shouter' or 'noble', from a personal name diminutive). The Ó Nualláin were chiefs of Fothairt (Forth) in modern county Carlow from the 11th to the 16th century, with seat at Tullow. Their inauguration as chiefs of Fothairt was the public ceremony at which the kings of Leinster were themselves nominally inaugurated, an unusual constitutional role for a sub-chiefly family. Other Ó Nualláin lines existed in Mayo and Cork but the Carlow sept is the principal source of the modern Nolan pool.
The history of Nolan
The Ó Nualláin were unusually ceremonial in role: the chief of Forth held the hereditary right to inaugurate the kings of Leinster at the rath of Knockaulin (Dún Ailinne) in modern Kildare. The sept's territory was concentrated around Tullow in modern Co. Carlow, where they held lands as sub-chiefs of the Mac Murchadha kings of Leinster. The Norman conquest of Leinster reduced their political role from the 12th century onward but the surname remained densely planted in Carlow and the surrounding south-Leinster counties through every subsequent census.
Brian Ó Nualláin (1911–1966), the Strabane-born novelist who wrote as Flann O'Brien (At Swim-Two-Birds, The Third Policeman) and as Myles na gCopaleen (the Cruiskeen Lawn Irish Times column 1940–66), was the great experimental Irish modernist after Joyce. Christopher Nolan (b. 1970), the Westminster-born filmmaker of Memento, Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy and Oppenheimer, descends from a Westmeath emigrant Nolan line on his father's side. The Nolans (Anne, Denise, Maureen, Linda, Bernie, Coleen) of late-1970s Dublin-Irish pop were a single family — Tommy Nolan and Maureen Nolan's daughters.
Notable bearers of the Nolan name
- Brian Ó Nualláin / Flann O'Brien (1911–1966) — novelist and columnist
- Christopher Nolan (b. 1970) — filmmaker (Memento, Inception, Oppenheimer)
- The Nolans — Dublin-Irish family pop group