O’Sullivan Irish Family Heritage Gifts

O’Sullivan is the fuller English form of Ó Súileabháin, “descendant of Súileabhán,” which Patrick Woulfe traces to Súil-dubhán, “black-eyed.” Woulfe places the family of the same stock as the MacCarthys and O’Callaghans, among the leading Eóganacht families of Munster.

Their first lands lay along the Suir in County Tipperary, where the chief’s seat stood at Knockgraffon. Anglo-Norman pressure drove them southwest in 1192, and on Kenmare and Bantry Bays they built a new power base that made them one of the strongest families in Munster. O’Sullivan Mór ruled from Dunkerron castle near Kenmare, while O’Sullivan Beare held Beara and Bantry. After Dunboy fell in 1602, Domhnall Cam O’Sullivan Beare led his people on a winter march of some 500 kilometers to Leitrim, one of the best-remembered episodes of the Nine Years’ War. His nephew Philip O’Sullivan Beare wrote a Latin history of Catholic Ireland in Spain, and the Kerry poet Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin became a master of eighteenth-century Irish verse.

Wear the O’Sullivan name on crest and Irish harp T-shirts, or display it on two garden flag designs, a black accent mug and ceramic Christmas ornaments printed with the Irish National Tartan. A pennant for the den, coasters for the table and a novelty license plate round out the range. Read the full O’Sullivan surname history.