O'Connor
also O'Conor, Ó Conchobhair, Connor
The royal house of Connacht — the last high kings of Ireland.
Draft entry · awaiting community review
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of O'Connor
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to O'Connor.
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 →Motto
Ó Dia gach an cabhair
— All help is from God
What does the O'Connor name mean?
From Ó Conchobhair — descendant of Conchobhar. Conchobhar means 'lover of hounds' (con, hound + cobhar, desire). The principal Conchobhar of the surname was Conchobhar mac Tairdelbach (d. 1067), king of Connacht, whose grandson Tairdelbach Mór Ó Conchobhair (1088–1156) was high king of Ireland. The Connacht O'Conors of Roscommon are the senior line; lesser Ó Conchobhair kindreds gave rise to the O'Connors of Kerry, Offaly (Uí Failí), and Sligo.
The history of O'Connor
The Ó Conchobhair of Connacht were the last Gaelic high kings of Ireland. Tairdelbach Ó Conchobhair was high king from 1119 to 1156 and his son Ruaidrí from 1166 to 1186. Ruaidrí was the high king who failed to prevent the Anglo-Norman conquest of Leinster — Strongbow landed in 1170 against the background of Ruaidrí's quarrel with Diarmait Mac Murchadha — and he submitted to Henry II at the Treaty of Windsor in 1175. He retired to the Augustinian abbey at Cong in Mayo and died there in 1198. He is buried at Clonmacnoise.
The senior O'Conor Don line continued to rule a much-reduced kingdom of Connacht under Norman supervision until the Cromwellian confiscations of 1652. The current O'Conor Don, Desmond O'Conor (b. 1938), is the senior of three recognised O'Conor cadet branches and the only Gaelic dynastic head whose title is acknowledged in continuous male-line descent from a high king of Ireland.
Sandra Day O'Connor (1930–2023), the first woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, descended from a Texas-O'Connor line of Famine-era Irish emigration. Sinéad O'Connor (1966–2023), the singer; Carroll O'Connor (1924–2001), the American actor; Frank O'Connor (1903–1966), the Cork short-story writer — all from the same Connacht-O'Connor surname pool. Roscommon today is still the densest O'Connor county on the island.
Notable bearers of the O'Connor name
- Ruaidrí Ó Conchobhair (1116–1198) — last high king of Ireland
- Tairdelbach Mór Ó Conchobhair (1088–1156) — high king, builder of churches at Tuam and Clonfert
- Sandra Day O'Connor (1930–2023) — first woman justice of the US Supreme Court
- Sinéad O'Connor (1966–2023) — singer