We trust, however, that such a sketch as we propose will not be wholly wanting either in interest or instruction. It will throw additional light upon the ancient customs and state of society in Ireland, and exhibit in a striking way a remarkable feature in the character of our countrymen of past ages, which no adverse circumstances were ever able utterly to destroy, and which, we trust, will again distinguish them as of old--their love for literature and learning, and their respect for good and learned men. It will also exhibit another trait in their national character no less peculiar or remarkable, namely, their great anxiety to preserve their family histories--a result of which is, that even to the present day the humblest Irish peasant, as well as the estated gentleman, can not unfrequently trace his descent not only to a more remote period, but also with a greater abundance of historical evidence than most of the princely families of Europe. This is, indeed, a trait in the national character which philosophers, and men like ourselves, usually affect to hold in contempt. But no species of knowledge should be despised; and the desire to penetrate the dim obscurities of time in search of our origin, as well as to speculate upon our future prospects, is one of the characteristics which distinguish the human from the lower animals of creation, and without which we should have little to boast of over them. The family of O’Clery, or, as the name is now usually written, Cleary, and sometimes anglicized Clarke, is not of Tirconnellian origin, nor of very ancient standing in the country of the Kinel-Connell race, the present county of Donegal. Their original locality was in Hy-Fiachrach-Aidhne, a district comprising the entire of the present diocese of Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and of which their ancestors were, for a long period previous to the Anglo-Norman conquest, the hereditary lords or kings. As usual in ancient Irish topographical names, this territory derived its appellation from that of the tribe by whom it was formed into a principality, the name Hy-Fiachrach-Aidhne being the tribe name of the descendants of Fiachra, who was the son of Eochy-Moyvaine, King of Ireland in the fourth century. On the adoption of surnames, however, at the close of the tenth century, this tribe having split into several distinct families, assumed different surnames from their immediate progenitors, and of these families the most eminent were the O’Clerys, the O’Heynes, the O’Shaughnessys, the Mac Giolla Kellys, and the O’Moghans. The occasion of the first settlement of the O’Clerys at Kilbarron, in the country of Tirconnell, will be best told in the simple statement of his descendants, as given in their genealogical work.