O’Dowd

Variations – Dowd, Dowde, O’Dowds, Doody
Racial Origin – Irish
Source – A given name

The family of O’Dowd and its variations are but Anglicized developments of the Irish clan name of “O’Dudhda,” and such names as Hetherington. De ‘eauharnais or Van Rensselaer “have nothing on it” from the viewpoint either of antiquity or importance in the dim ages of the past.

At best the use of these can go back to but about the eleventh century. Five hundred years before this the chieftain of the Clan O’Dowd stood high in the councils of the Irish kings and High-kings.

It was about the year 650 A.D. that the organization of the clan took place under the leadership of the chieftain “Dubbda,” whose given mane had a meaning not dissimilar to “Donald.” That is, it meant “dark complexioned,”

The O’Dowds were one of the numerous clans which were in the first place septs or divisions of the still more ancient clan of the O’Connors, which together with the O’Neills furnished a very large number of the succession of “High-Kings” who ruled the ancient Irish civilization from about 1700 B.C. until it finally went to pieces under the terrific and persistent onslaughts of the Anglo-Normans.