Toole

The O'Tooles, Irish Ó Tuathail, were a Leinster clan named after Tuathal mac Augaire, king of Leinster, who died in 958; his grandson Doncaon was the first to bear the surname hereditarily. They held southern Kildare until the Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century drove them into the Wicklow mountains around Glendalough, with their power centred on the Glen of Imaal.

Lorcán Ua Tuathail, archbishop of Dublin at the Norman invasion and canonised in 1225, was born a chief's son at Kilkea. From their glens the O'Tooles and their kinsmen the O'Byrnes raided the English Pale around Dublin for nearly four centuries.

By 1500 five great houses acknowledged the O'Toole of Powerscourt as their chief. The sept joined the Confederate Catholics at Kilkenny in 1642, and in the eighteenth century its swordsmen served in the armies of France and Spain.