Being a Roman Catholic of Irish ancestry, I might be expected to propagate prolifically and in a few hundred years from now, have quite a lineup of descendants all tracing themselves (gratefully) back to me. I haven’t gotten off to a good start on that score, however, having been in on the creation of only two children, but at least I’ve bought my ticket and am in the draw.
However, even if my descendants start earlier and have larger families than I have – I’ve been heading in the wrong direction – great-great-grandfather Hagarty had eight, great-grandfather had five, grandfather had seven, father had seven – I’m going to be a long time catching up to the family members who went before. My great-great-grandfather John, for example, born in 1798, can claim more than 1,400 people in his decendancy up to this day (roughly 900 still living, 500 not). Even with the smaller families of today, that number will keep growing exponentially until at some point, the Hagartys should be able to declare our own sovereign country or at least fill a stadium for a horseshoe pitching playoff game and half-time show starring Mick Jagger and the Rolling Grave Stones. (My great-great-grandfather Morrison, my matriarchal ancestor, kept himself a little busier than his contemporary Hagarty by having 13 children.)
But I bow down today, and will never again pretend to be even a contender in the descendancy sweepstakes, to the great medieval Irish king who may have been the source of life for as many as three million men around the world. A new genetic study suggests that the 5th century warlord known as Niall of the Nine Hostages may be the ancestor of about one in 12 Irishmen, say researchers at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.
Niall established a dynasty of powerful chieftains that dominated lreland for six centuries and he and his descendants believed in big, big families. He himself is said to have had 12 sons but one of his chieftain descendants had 18 sons by 10 different women, raising the question of when he found the time to get any chieftaining done. He also had 59 grandsons. That’s a lot of birthday cards to send out and graduations to attend.
He died, exhausted, in 405.
The head researcher who discovered all this about his hero Niall has drawn the conclusion that large families, in those days, were the best way to indicate enormous power, in contrast to today, where the more rich and powerful the clan, the smaller the families (the U.S. Kennedys excepted).
I don’t expect anyone, 15 centuries from now, to be referring to me as Jim of the Nine Anythings, let alone hostages (I’d have no room to hide them out if I did capture them, the shed being too cluttered up with hockey sticks and snow tires at present), but Niall was not only romantic, he was very crafty too. He used to take people hostage and use them to keep other chieftains in line and he is even reported to have kidnapped St. Patrick himself. Being a saint however (Patty, not me, yet), my guess is St. Patrick forgave him for the six years he then spent as a slave in Ireland, far from his native England. Not only forgave him, but after entering religious life, returned to Ireland and spent the rest of his saintly days there.
Niall of the Nine Hostages, who became high king of Ireland, got his name from the nine key hostages he dragged off, including St. Patrick. A pesky fellow, he was always raiding the British and French coasts but he is believed to have been killed either in the English Channel or in Scotland. I don’t know how he died but I am pretty sure it wasn’t the result of a fall from a merry-go-round. His descendants, however, were the most powerful rulers of Ireland until the 11th century.
You might know some of them today as O’Neills, but they go by at least a dozen other surnames, Hagarty not among them. Or Jagger.
Despite his obvious fertility, generating as he seems to have done a whopping three million male descendants, Niall was a relative choir boy compared with good old Mongol emperor Genghis Khan who is believed to have 16 million descendants after conquering most of Asia in the 13th century. Way to go Genghis!
Maybe it’s just me, but l think 16 million, even three million, is just too many kids to look after if you’re going to give them the attention they need.
I’ll be happy with a couple hundred thousand.
After work today, I am going to clear some space in the shed for a few hostages.
©2006 Jim Hagarty
