Ireland is a crossroad on the map of the world and her people. Celtic adventurers from Northern Spain reportedly first landed at Bantry (bean-traigh, the white strand) Bay, led by Queen Scota, widow of Milesius. In Smith's History of Cork is written that "Ancient accounts differ much from each other, some making only three sons of Milesius to land in Ireland; but the landing of these, as well as of Partholanus, they all place in the Bay of Bantry, which they call ‘Inber Sceine.’
According to Hugh W.L. Weir, our clan name has been spelled Sulivan, Sellevan, Sullavan, Sulevan, O’Sowlywaine, Ossulevan, Solivan, O’Suiliban, Osulevan, Soolivan, Solywaine, Soolavan and Solahan. We are bearers of the third most numerous Irish family name today and " claim, with some justification, that their ancestry can be traced back almost 37 centuries to the son of a Spanish King.
About 1699 BC, Milesius (Miled), a Spanish Celt, settled in Ireland. Historians relate that the O Sullivans are descended from his son, Heber. The family became Princes of Eoghanacht Mor, a territory in the present-day barony of Middlethird in County Tipperary. A member of the Tipperary clan, Suilebhan, descendant of Fingin, King of Munster and Son of Aodh Dubh, provided the name for our well-known family. Suilebhan’s third great grandson, Buadhach, was the first person to assume the surname of O Sullivan, which is derived from ‘Suilebhan’, meaning ‘One Eye’ in Gaelic." There are also accounts the name means ‘black-eyed.’ Some have intrepreted the meaning as "Seeing with the eye of one (unity)."
Weir reports that Buadhach’s great grandsons were probably the first to leave the area of Tipperary and travel to the Southwest of Ireland in the 12th century, the time of the Norman Conquest. Noted genealogist Sir Bernard Burke says "The family of O Sullivan deduces its descent from Olioll Ollum, King of Munster, who reigned AD 125. The town of Bearhaven in Cork is said to have been named because an Irish chief named Owen (Eoghan) the Splendid, having been defeated in a great engagement by "Conn of the Hundred Battles," fled to Spain, where he married the King’s daughter, Beara. Returning after the lapse of some time at the head of a powerful force, his vessels put into a commodious harbour on the south-west coast of Ireland which he was so pleased that in honour of his wife he called it Bearhaven. The haven in later years gave the name to the surrounding area that became known as the barony of Beara, or Beare.
About 28 miles in length, the northern shore has three harbors, Berehaven, Adrigole and Glengarriffe, with Bantry harbor on the eastern or landward end. T.D. Sullivan called this area ‘Sullivan’s Country.’
In the area of Knockgraffon, Tipperary, we were lords of the land. Hugh W.L. Weir fixes the districts of Cahir, Clonmel, Fethard, Carrick-on-Suir and Cashel, as our principalities in the fifth and sixth centuries. However, at the time of the Anglo Norman invasion in the 12th century, we were driven westward and south, joining our Milesian cousins who were in Cork and Kerry. From there we divided by geography; on the northern or Kerry side of the line were the O Sullivan Mor (greater), the chieftain holding Dunkerron Castle in Kenmare. On the Southern line, or Cork side, along the shores of Bantry Bay, were the O Sullivan Beare, holding Dunboy (Dun-bwee) Castle. Other branches, discussed here later, were the Mac Finin Duibh O Sullivans of Tuosist and Bearehaven and the Vera-O’Sullivans (No Surrender) of Cappanacusha Castle in Kerry, whose castle was abandoned in 1652 by Owen O Sullivan.
Weir locates other Clan strongholds in the Bantry Bay area at Reenadisert, near Glengarriff; Whiddy Island; Reenabanny; and on Dursey Island. In 1320 we established a Franciscan monastery at Bantry which became a final resting place for the family. The O Sullivan Mor chose a burial place in another Franciscan monastery founded by the Mac Carthy Mor, on a site near the lower lake of Killarney, which an old legend relates to have been miraculously pointed out.
The traditional seat of power of the kings of Meath and eventually of the high kings of Ireland was Tara, an ancient religious site by the time the Celtic gaels took it over. In the third century AD, High King Cormac MacArt built an enormous palace at Tara, complete with a banquet hall 700 feet long. We were governed at this time by the Brehons, called the West’s First Lawgivers, judges of Celtic Ireland. These were a sophisticated code of conduct that was both fair and efficient and was in usage a thousand years before the English devised common law. During the Irish rebellion of 1798 thousands of rebels spontaneously gathered at Tara, as if they were drawn by a spiritual power. Later, in 1843, it was the site of one of the largest public gatherings in Irish history. Three quarters of a million people gathered to hear Daniel O’Connel, the Liberator, the man who had won Catholic emancipation.
The overlord of this district was the MacCarthy Mor. The O Sullivans paid tribute to him, providing him with fighting men and supplies for them whenever he had occasion to come through the territory. Foreign writers referred to these tributes as ‘cuttings and closherings’ of the Irish chiefs.
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