There is another explanation for the name MacGuinness and that is it derives from the Irish MacAonghasa from the personal name Aongas (Angus) made up of aon (one) and gus (choice). It is said to be the name of a famous Pictish king of Scotland, supposedly the son of the Irish God Daghda and Boinn, the goddess who gave her name to the River Boyne. My Irish is a bit rusty but I don't recognise Gion Ais. A ridge in Irish is drum/drom drimm. The MacGuinnesses displaced the O'Haugheys in the 12th. C. and ruled over the region until the 17th.C. Kinelarty derives from Cinel Arty (territory of the (Mac) Artans who with the Macgennis clan shared the territory. Artan is said to come from the Celtic or perhaps Pictish word "art/artois" meaning bear. The Macartneys of Scotland and later Ulster likely were originally MacArtans to went to Scotland as raiders or settlers and stayed there, the name gradually changing to McCartney/Macartney and variant spellings. The distance from the County Down coast to Scotland is only around 20 miles - an easy day's sail. The idea that the Mac/McArtneys were derived from the McCarthys of Munster is very unlikely to be true. The Guinness crest I have seen has a lion and a red hand but no bear. Many thanks Fiona for an interesting story and I'll drink a creamy pint to Arthur not caring if he was entitled to his crest or no. A large number of crests and coats of arms are purely fictional creations of the Victorian and earlier eras anyway. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fiona Jones" <mourneminers@optonline.net> To: <nir-down@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 6:00 AM Subject: [NIR-DOWN] GUINNESS and the McCartan clan of Kinelarty > Story below from the Man About Town (Mourne Observer Newspaper) > http://www.mourneobserver.com/Man%20about%20town.htm > > Fiona. > > IGP Co. Down Coordinator > > http://www.rootsweb.com/~nirdow2/ > > ============ > > Guinness and the Guiness connection > > IT seems DNA research has now linked the great Guinness brewing dynasty to > the McCartan clan of Kinelarty in rural Down, rather than, has been > previously claimed, the high-born Magennis chieftains of Iveagh. > Newspaper reports on the discovery - contained in a new biography, > "Arthur's > Round: The Life and Times of Brewing Legend Arthur Guinness" - have been > accompanied by such expressions as "ancestral pretensions," "an act of > social climbing," and "humble background." > For hundreds of years it has been assumed that brewery founder Arthur > Guinness was a descendant of the Iveagh chieftains. Indeed, when he > married > in 1761 he engraved a silver cup with the armorial bearings of the > Magennises - a lion, with the red hand of Ulster and a bear. > DNA test carried out at Trinity College Dublin at the behest of the family > show the male Y-chromosomes can, instead, be traced to the McCartan clan - > and not the clan chiefs but, rather, their followers. > Where the McCartans once lived is today the small hamlet of Guiness, a > name > derived from the Irish Gion Ais, meaning wedge-shaped ridge, thus > explaining > the roots of the surname. > And, of course, as local researchers will tell you, there's a strong > connection between the McCartans and the late French President Charles De > Gaulle His great-grandmother was one Marie Angelique McCartan. > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NIR-DOWN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message