A dhuine uasail, - Concerning travellers in his Survey Letters from Donegal (1835) the scholar John O'Donovan describes meeting a travelling piper and tinsmith, Edmund MacSweeney Doe, who was "tall and stately. with a countenance which spoke his descent from a goodly race."
O'Donovan records: "Taking off my hat, I saluted him as Mac Swyne Na Doe, Lord of Tua Tory and he, taking my hand, returned the salutation as became the representative of his race . . . He then sat down and told me his story, the misfortunes of his family, how he became a tinker, and lastly his pedigree up to Sir Malmurry Mac Swynedoe, which runs thus:
1, Sir Malmurry (commander of O'Donnell's rearguard during the retreat from Kinsale, 1601).
2, Donagh More (last" of the" MacSweeney chieftains).
3, Morogh (delegate to Kilkenny in 1642 and Colonel of the Tyrconnell Regiment in the army of Owen Roe O'Neill).
4, Donagh Oge (Jacobite, outlawed 1691, land confiscated. Went to France with Sarsfield).
5, Torlogh (dispossed as a child in 1691 and left destitute among the destitute).
Edmund Mac Sweeney's lineage can be found in John O'Donovan's translation of the Annal of the Four Masters (footnote, page 2341) and in O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees And these "are not our people" and "not natives"? Le meas,
(Hon. Chieftain, Clann, tSuibhne na dTuath),
Clonkeen Drive,
Dublin 18.