Occaan, Prince of Fermonach

Abt 935 - Yes, date unknown

• Name	Occaan  [1, 2, 3]
  Suffix	Prince of Fermonach
  Born	Abt 935	, , , Ireland
  Christened	Y  [3]
  Gender	Male
  Died	Yes, date unknown
  Person ID	I1	Munro
  Last Modified	19 Aug 2013

  
  

  Family	Unknown,   b. Est 950, , , , Ireland ,   d. Yes, date unknown
  Children	+ 1. Donald Munro,   b. 990, Foyle Lough, , , Ireland ,   d. 1039, , , , Scotland  (Age 49 years)
  Last Modified	6 May 2010
  Family ID	F1575	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Occaan is a shadowy, legendary figure who is called by several different names and titles, some of which are: Occaan, Oraan; Chief of O Caan, Ocaan, or O'Cathan; and Prince of Fermonaugh, Fermonach, Farmonach or Fermangh. He was supposedly a prince or clan chief in County Derry, Ireland (or king of Craobh, Cianachta and Fir Li) whose castle was on the Roe (or Ro) Water near Loch (or Lough) Foyle (or Feoil or Fowle or Feowl). The Munro name is said to come from the Roe River in Ireland and Foulis (or Fowlis) Castle is named for Loch Foyle. Foulis or Fowlis is actually a local and personal name common in Scotland. There are parishes of Fowlis-Easter and Fowlis-Wester in Perthshire, and a family of Fowlises or Foulises were the owners from whom the ancestor of Lord Linlithgow in the reign of Charles I, acquired by marriage the valuable mining property of Leadhills in Lanarkshire. There are several theories about the origins of the Munro Clan. The most popular theory states that they were Ancient Scots who were banished to Ireland and the Western Islands by the Romans in about 357 AD, but returned to Scotland in the eleventh century under the leadership of Donald, son of Occaan. The Eyre-Todd reference calls this story "far-fetched" and says that it seems much more likely that the cognomen had the same origin as the name of Montrose on the east coast of Scotland, which was originally known as Munros--"the hill promontory" or "the moss promontory." This would agree with the location of the territory of the chiefs on the south of Ben Wyvis in Ross-shire, the "promontory country," on the northern shore of the Cromarty Firth. The first known person of the clan is said to have been Donald O'Ceann, in the time of Macbeth. The patronymic, O'Ceann, Skene, in his "Highlanders of Scotland," ingeniously converts into O'Cathan, and so makes out that the clan is a branch of the great Clan Chattan or Siol O'Cain. It seems much more likely, however, that the name Donald O'Ceann is simply what it says--Donald, son of the Chief. The Munroes are also known among the Highlanders as Clan Rothich or Roich. ********** «i»"The origin of the Munros is lost in the dim annals of antiquity, and it is now quite impossible to trace. Sir Robert Douglas says in his Baronage, page 79, that he saw a manuscript history of the family in which it was stated that "they were of the Ancient Scots, who, being banished from this country by the Romans, fled to Ireland and the Western Islands about the year 357, from whence they returned some centuries thereafter," after a residence there of seven hundred years. Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh in his "MS. Ordinary of Arms," preserved in the British Museum, among the Harleian MSS., No. 3740, says that "the progenitors of the family came from Ireland with the Macdonalds, on whom they constantly had a depending when they were Earls of Rosse," and that their place of origin there was "the mountain on the River Roe, whence they have their surname." A "Chronological Account" of the clan, printed at Inverness in 1805, said to have been from a manuscript written in 1716 by one of the Munros of Coul, states that they were "descended lineally and lawfully of Donald, lawful son of the Chief of Ocaan (O'Cathan) in Ireland, called the Prince of Fermonach (Fermanagh). The same (Donald) came to Scotland with his sister Ann, married to Angush Macdonald of Isla, Lord of the Isles." Angus Mor Macdonald ruled from 1255 to 1300, and his second son, Angus Og, from 1303 to 1329. They were the only Chiefs of the Macdonalds at that early period so named. "There is, however, no doubt that Angus Og of the Isles, who succeeded his elder brother Alexander in 1303, married Margaret, daughter of Guy O'Cathan, anglicised O'Kaine, of Ulster, the tocher being, according to Hugh Macdonald the "Sleat Seannachaidh," seven score men out of every surname under O'Kain. Of these Irishmen several are said to have become the heads of clans or septs in Scotland, and among them Macdonald specially mentions "the Munros, so-called because they came from the Innrrmost Roe-Water in the county of Derry, their names being formerly O'Millans." The value of this fable may be estimated by the fact that the author of it derives the Roses of Kilravock, the Dingwalls, Beatons, and other well-known Highland families from the same source. The author of the "Chronological Account" already quoted adds that "the people then being much addicted to call men patronimically, or from the places whence they came, always called Donald, O'Caan's son, Donald Munro, and his successors Munro, as Irish wrytes yet extant testifie, and were called in English and Latin de Monro, and that in respect that O'Caan's residence and castle was on the Ro water; and it is informed the said Donald called the place he took in Scotland Foules, after a land so-called in Ireland, near Loch Fowle." It may be stated that there is a "Lough Foyle" in county Derry into which the River Roe still empties itself, and this may be said to lend a certain modicum of plausibility to the tradition which connects the ancestors of the Munros with that locality. There have been several other more or less fanciful theories as to the origin of the family which are even more far-fetched than those here referred to." The late well-known and distinguished author of Celtic Scotland, Dr W. F. Skene, discusses the subject in an earlier work in which he expresses the opinion that the Munros came originally into Ross from the Province of Moray. Under the heading of "Siol O'Cain" he says that "in enquiring into the existence of any descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the north of Moray, we should expect to find them either as isolated clans in the neighbourhood, whose traditionary origin showed some connection with those of the tribe of Moray, or situated in districts whose situation displayed evident marks of the violent removal effected by Malcolm IV. Of the latter we find instances in the Macnachtons and Macleans; of the former we discover it in those clans whom tradition deduces from the O'Cains, and which consist principally of the Munros, Macmillans, and Buchanans. These clans, like most of the other Highland clans, have been supposed to be derived from the Irish, but their traditionary origin clearly points out their connection with the tribe of Moray." He then expresses the belief that the family of O'Cain and the Clan Chattan have the same origin, both, according to the Seannachies, from the same part of Ireland, but that fabulous tradition as to their origin Skene maintains to be as untenable in the case of the Munros as it has been proved to be in that of Clan Chattan. The same high authority, after pointing out where the possessions of the Munros lie, says that their lands are known in the Highlands by the name of "Fearann Donald," a name "derived from the progenitor Donald, who bore the patronymic O'Cain; but as they originally formed a part of the tribe of Moray, it seems clear that their earliest seats must have been in that part of Moray from which they were driven out by the Bissets. The first of the Munros for whom we have distinct authority is George Munro of Fowlis, who is said to be mentioned in a charter of William, Earl of Sutherland, so early as the reign of Alexander II." Dr Skene then gives a brief account of the battle of Beallach-nam-Brog, in which "a hundred and forty of the Dingwalls, and eleven of the house of Foulis, who were to succeed each other, were killed, and that accordingly the succession fell to an infant." This engagement will be found fully described later on in its proper place and under its correct date.«/i» «i»The first feudal titles obtained by the family of Fowlis were acquired about the middle of the fourteenth century from the Earl of Ross as their feudal superior. The reddendo of one of these charters, granting the lands of Pitlundie, declares that Munro holds them "blench of the Earl of Ross for payment of a pair of white gloves, or three pennies Scots, if required, alternately." In another charter by the same Earl granting the lands of Easter Fowlis, it is expressly declared "that these lands had belonged to his predecessors since the time of Donald,the first of the family." Ever since the date of this charter the Munros appear to have remained possessors of their original territory without making any additions to them or suffering diminution from them. They continued to hold a high position throughout among the other Higland clans, as will fully appear in the course of this work.«/i» ("History of the Munros" by Alexander Mackenzie) ********** ********** «i»"The Monroe or Munro family was founded by Ocaan, Prince of Fermangh, chief of a clan of Scots who in the fourth century had been driven by the Romans to Ireland. He dwelt by Lough Foyle on the Roe water, about 1000 A.D., from whence the name Munro is derived." «/i» (William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine - Vol. XIII #4 - p. 231-241) ********** Compiled and edited by Allen Alger, Genealogist, Clan Munro Association, USA [4, 5]

  
  

• Sources

  [S686] The Munro Tree (1734), R. W. Munro, (Privately published in Edinburgh, Scotland (1978)), p. 1 (Reliability: 3). [S247] History of the Munros of Fowlis, Alexander Mackenzie, M.J.L., (Published in Inverness, Scotland by A & W Mackenzie (1898)), p. 1-4 (Reliability: 3). [S743] Family of Adam, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, (https://new.familysearch.org/en/action/unsec/welcome : copyright 2008), accessed 5 Apr 2010), L785-2TB (Reliability: 3). [S687] Highland Clans of Scotland, The, George Eyre-Todd, (Garnier & Company, Charleston, South Carolina, 1969 (Excerpts can be found in the Clan Munro files - Eyre-Todd, George)), p. 438 (Reliability: 3). [S645] Clan Munro files - Boggs, Elizabeth Monroe, Elizabeth Monroe Boggs, Pedigree of the Munro Family - undated (Reliability: 3).