Dowd

The O'Dowds (Irish Ó Dubhda) were a Gaelic Irish clan of north Connacht, descended from the Uí Fiachrach. Their surname, from the ninth-century ancestor Dubda mac Connmhach, was among the oldest recorded in Ireland, the annals noting the death of an Aedh Ua Dubhda in 982.

From the eighth to the fifteenth century they were kings of Uí Fiachrach Muaidhe, the coastal country of Tireragh, and a maritime power in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with some twenty castles. In 1354 Sen-Bhrian O'Dowd temporarily drove the Anglo-Norman settlers out of Tireragh, and each chief was inaugurated at Carn Amhalghaigh near Killala.

They sponsored the Great Book of Lecan, compiled by the MacFirbis chroniclers between 1397 and 1418, which records their inauguration rite. After the medieval kingdom was absorbed into the Kingdom of Ireland, they continued as lords of Tír Fhiacrach.