5. “CAIRBRE AOBHDHA, or the district on the water, from _cairbre_, a district, and _aobhdha_, waters; the present barony of Kenry, in the county of Limerick. This country was also denominated _Hy dun na bhan_, or the hilly district on the river; the ancient chiefs whereof were called Hy Dun Navan or O’Donovan, that is, the chiefs of the hilly country on the river.” Here every single assertion comprises a separate error. _Cairbre_ does not mean a district, and _aobhdha_ does not mean waters. This territory was not otherwise called Hy Dunnavan; and even if it were, that name would not mean “the hilly district on the river.” Again, the territory of _Cairbre Aobhdha_ is not the barony of Kenry, neither is it a hilly district, but one of the most level plains in all Ireland; and lastly, the name O’Donovan does not moan “chiefs of the hilly district on the river,” for this family name was called after Donovan, the son of Cathal, chief of the Hy Figeinte, a people whose country extended from the river Shannon to the summit of Slieve Logher in the county of Kerry, and from Bruree and the river Maigue westwards to the verge of the present county of Kerry. He flourished in the tenth century, and was killed by the famous Brian Boru in a pitched battle, fought in the year 977; and his name was derived, not from his “hilly country on the river” Maigue, as Mr Beauford would have us believe (though it must be acknowledged that he resided at Bruree, which is a _dun-abhann_, or dun of the river), but from the colour of his hair; for the name is written by Mac Firbis and others _Dondubhan_, which signifies _brown-haired chief_. I trust I have now clearly proved the fallacy of Mr Beauford’s mode of investigating the origin and meaning of the names of Irish families and territories. It is by processes similar to the five specimens above given that he has attempted to demonstrate his theory, that the names of Irish tribes and families were derived from the territories and localities in which they dwelt, a theory never heard of before his time; for up to the time of the writers of the _Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, all were agreed that the Irish tribes took their surnames from certain distinguished ancestors, while the Saxons and Anglo-Normans took theirs generally from their territories and places of residence. For further information on this subject I refer the reader to Verstegan’s work, entitled “Restitution of Decayed Intelligence” and Camden’s “Remains.” The learned Roderic O’Flaherty, in his Ogygia Vindicated, p. 170, speaks on this subject in terms which Mr Beauford could not have mistaken. “The custom of our ancestors was not to take names and creations from places and countries as it was with other nations, but to give the name of the family to the seigniory by them occupied.”