Person:John Colgan (2)

Death record https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1897/05872/4664847.pdf

NOTES:

From Wikepedia:

Colgan is an Irish surname, an Anglicized form of Irish Ó Colgáin meaning ‘descendant of Colga’, a personal name based on colg ‘thorn’, ‘sword’.

References to Colgans can be found in the Annals of the Four Masters:

http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T100005A/index.html

From 606 AD:

There was a time when Loch Da Damh was a pool of splendour, The lake was nothing else but splendour in the reign of Aedh, son of Colgan.

Indifferent to me who destroyed it; my friend has abandoned it; Though it was he that placed a brilliant house upon the island of Loch Da Damh.

Aside:

From "Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 4" http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=four%20masters%20colgan%20aedh%20Devenish&sig=eD3u1vfOwmHWi_AD04Xthe4K7x4&ei=VtgPTKjiA4L98Aa6laTmCA&ct=result&id=IocJAAAAIAAJ&ots=udYnNgx5tr&output=text

In a note O'Donovan writes in his edition of the Four Masters: "i.e. the Lake of the Two Oxen" This was evidently the name of a lake in Oirghiaila, on an island in which, the habitation of the chieftain, Aedh Mac Colgan, was situated. It has not yet been identified. These verses, which Colgan understood to allude to the abdication of Aedh, are very obscure, as we do not know to what the writer exactly alludes."

Now, I submit that the quatrain was an interpolation by one of the Four Masters. That it alludes to a portion of Lough Erne [lower] as Loch-da-Damh. That it should read Loch-na-Damh, i.e. "The Lake of the Oxen" : that the " Island of Loch-da-Damh" was in that lake : that it was called the "Island of the Oxen," and that it is now known as Daim-Inis, i. e. " Devenish." And further, that the Brilliant House on the island of Loch-da-Damh refers to the monastery, Round Tower, and Cross on Devenish. The writer, I submit, refers to its destruction, and laments it, and refers poetically to his friend Aedh Mic Colgain, who had built that house, and who is now no more.

Ruins of this monastery can be seen here: http://www.ni-environment.gov.uk/places/monuments/devenish.shtml

From 718 AD:

Dunchadh, son of Murchadh the Noble, Aedh, son of Colgan of the Red Swords, Slew Fearghal of valiant fight, in the vigorous battle of Almhuin.

And from 733 AD:

The chieftains of Leinster came with their kings into the battle; and bloodily and heroically was the battle fought between them both. Heroes were slaughtered, and bodies were mutilated. Aedh Allan, and Aedh, son of Colgan, King of Leinster, met each other in single combat; and Aedh, son of Colgan, was slain by Aedh Allan. The Leinstermen were killed, slaughtered, cut off, and dreadfully exterminated, in this battle, so that there escaped of them but a small remnant, and a few fugitives.

Colgan Family Crest