Irish Clan Name: Ó Laoghaire.

O'Leary means Calf-herd.

Motto: "Laidir is e lear rich " (Strong is the King of the sea).

This family name belongs to County Cork in the Southern Province of Munster, but the Clan was forced from its homeland by the Anglo-Norman invasions of the Twelfth Century. It migrated from the Territory of Corca Laidhe in South-West Cork to a more rugged and remote area up towards the Kerry Mountains in Inchigeela. This was territory ruled over by the MacCarthys of Muskerry (Muschraighe), and the O'Leary's became minor chieftains under this ruling clan.

In a land survey taken in 1654 (The Civil Survey), from 103 landowners in that region, 41 were MacCarthys, 34 were O'Learys, and 10 were O'Herlihys. At the time of a survey taken in 1890, O'Leary was fifty-fifth in the list of the hundred most commonly-found family names in Ireland. A large proportion of these, over 80% in fact, were born in the traditional County Cork heartland's of the Clan.

Two villages in Ireland bear the name Ballyleary ("bally" coming from the Irish "baile" meaning "homeland, "farmstead", "settlement", therefore the place-name being literally "home of the O'Leary's").

When the struggles of the insurrections against the English and the subsequent reprisals began to affect life in the Munster Province, the O'Learys were in the forefront of the fight against the invaders. The Clan suffered greatly during the Desmond Wars between the Earls of Desmond and the Earls of Ormond.

After the disastrous Battle of Kinsale, Cork, when the forces of the Ulster Clan Chieftains joined together with Spanish troops coming to assist them against the English They were soundly defeated by the latter; one Mahon O'Leary went back to Spain with d'Aquila and lived there in exile. He was a forerunner of the famous Wild Geese - young Irish noblemen forced to flee overseas and seek their fortunes on the Continent of Europe after the failed Jacobite Rebellion. Many O'Leary's are recorded as having fought in the Irish Brigades in the service of the French King as mercenaries during the Eighteenth Century.

Famous writers of the O'Leary Clan include Ellen O'Leary (1831-1889) authoress of patriotic poems, song writer Joseph O'Leary (1795-1855) and Father Peter O'Leary (Peadar Ó Laoghaire) who lived from 1839 to 1919 and in his heyday was known as "the greatest living master of Irish Gaelic prose".

In the field of Law, Joseph O'Leary (1792-1857) found fame as the writer of standard legal works, and in the field of medicine, William Hegarty O'Leary was a famous surgeon. The athlete Daniel O'Leary (1846-1933) performed feats of strength and held several world records for long distance walking.

The town of Dun Laoghaire (Fort of (O) Leary), was previously called Dunleary during the Fifth century, when St. Patrick began his conversion of the Irish to Christianity.and is Dublin's seaport.

Inchigeelagh is part of the ancestral home of the O'Leary's and forms a stage of the Beara-Breifne Greenway which is based on the historic march of O'Sullivan Beara in 1603.

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