Hi Dennis-- My information comes from my living O'Sullivan cousins in Knockawaddra, Dunmanway, speaking clearly about the poorhouse in Dunmanway, and from the breadth of records I have studied in US, Ireland and Wales, where enumerators listed my family as Carty rather than McCarthy, and as Connor decade after decade, while their baptismal and burial names were clearly O'Connor. Now it is possible that the Dunmanway information is stilted, as those cousins of mine are old-world Irish compared to my experience elsewhere. But, as a living cousin, I have been told to carry that history, and never to forget that angry story. My entire O'Connor family from Wales (originally Cork) managed to get their O's in by listing it as their middle initial (MA 1910 census). I still have written and spoken records from my O'Sullivan cousins in New Castle, Pennsylvania, who are adamant (although censuses list them for decades as Sullivans), that they are O'Sullivans. My point was, researchers should not let the alternate spellings throw them off. In my estimation, these two spellings are interchangeable, depending upon who wrote the records. I don't want anybody to fear they have not found their family merely because an O or Mc is gone missing. Happens all the time. Regards, Candi In all the years I've been researching Irish history and genealogy, this is the first time I have ever heard this explanation of disappearing "O"s. While there are apocryphal tales from Famine times of Irish Catholics being forced to convert to Protestantism before "taking the soup" from non-Catholic relief organizations, I've never seen it alleged that a change in surname was part of the deal. Those who did convert were derided by their co-religionists as "soupers" but this is likely due to the nature of Irish begrudgery, where whenever one's fellows gain some advantage or advancement it is alleged that they did so by nefarious means. -dja