Brian Ború of Killaloe and Kate Middleton

[pwaldron]

There has been lots of rubbish written by sub-editors about the connections between two people who have been in the news this week, Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and Brian Ború, who died 1000 years ago this Easter.

It seems to have begun with a story in the Telegraph dated 16 Dec 2012:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... amily.html
It reported that Australian History Teacher Michael Reed "spent several weeks tracing the Duchess’ family tree back five generations to the Marquess of Lansdowne".

In fact, the article basically says two things of relevance to the present topic:
1. that Kate Middleton and Barbara May Lupton are second cousins three times removed
and
2. that Barbara May Lupton's husband Christopher Llewellyn Bullock was a greatgreatgreatgrandson of the fourth Countess of Orkney.

Although the Telegraph didn't mention it, the Countess's real name was Mary O'Brien. Its main interest was in her brother-in-law, the 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, who was the first of two Irish-born holders of the office equivalent to Prime Minister of Great Britain, from 4 Jul 1782 to 2 Apr 1783. (The other was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, between 1828 and 1830.)

The Telegraph article was probably behind a PDF file which seems to have appeared about three months later:
http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2013/03/ ... bridge.pdf
Somebody in the interim appears to have noticed that Mary O'Brien was obviously, like all O'Briens, descended from Brian Ború. In fact, her parents were O'Brien first cousins, giving her an immediate double dose of Brian Ború blood.

It follows from this that Kate has third cousins twice removed descended on the other side of their family from Brian Ború, hardly as significant as the fact that her husband and, more recently, her son are well known to be descended from Brian Ború, surely a much closer connection.

http://www.thejournal.ie/kate-middleton ... 3-Mar2013/
on 11 Mar 2013 attributes the PDF file to Tourism Ireland.

On 12 Mar 2013, the story was carried under the misleading and irrelevant headline "Kate Middleton can trace Irish lineage back to High King Brian Boru" at
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/kate-m ... 70981.html

The Irish Central article went viral, e.g.
https://www.facebook.com/BrianBoru2014/ ... 1864066848

On 18 March 2013, even The O'Brien Clan posted on facebook "Kate Middleton can trace her Irish lineage back to High King Brian Boru" but did not include the lineage:
https://www.facebook.com/theobrienclan/ ... 4330648711

Kate Middleton is listed as both an ancestor and a descendant of Brian Ború on this ridiculous page:
http://www.battleofclontarf.net/brian-b ... -boru/3460
This smacks a little of the 1947 novelty song "I'm My Own Grandpaw":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_My_Own_Grandpa
This page also wrongly inserts several extra generations into the descent from Brian Ború to Kate's grandmother-in-law, the present Queen of England.

An anonymous article in the Brian Ború supplement in the Clare Champion of 11 Apr 2014 stated that "Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is also reportedly decended [sic] from Brian Ború through the Lupton family of Yorkshire." No sources are cited, and I suspect that "reportedly" merely refers to the same "reports" which I have cited above.

The question was raised with me when I spoke about Brian Ború and genealogy on Clare FM radio, also on 11 Apr 2014.

As Mark Humphrys has stated at
http://humphrysfamilytree.com/ca.irishtimes.html
the emerging consensus in genealogy is that almost everyone in Ireland today probably descends from Brian Boru. A similar statement could be made about Britain, so Kate Middleton quite likely does descend from Brian Ború. However, I have never seen the precise line of descent published, and it certainly does not appear at any of the above links. It may indeed be through her Lupton greatgrandmother, but could almost equally likely be through any of her other seven greatgrandparents.

Mark Humphrys may be able to give a precise line of descent when he speaks on the subject "We all descend from Brian Ború" in Killaloe Library at 11:30am this morning (12 Apr 2014).

His website at
http://humphrysfamilytree.com/famous.thelist.html
provides one link showing the Lupton family's descent from King Edward III of England:
http://humphrysfamilytree.com/Royal/Mann/kate.txt

[pwaldron]

As I suspect, it took Mark only a couple of minutes to work out this sample descent:

Brian Boroimhe
Donnchadh mac Briain King of Munster
Darbhforgal
Murcha
Donnchad mac Murchada King of Leinster
Diarmait MacMurrough King of Leinster b.1110
Aoife MacMurrough b.1145
Isabel de Clare 4th Countess of Pembroke
Isabel Marshal b.1200
Richard de Clare 6th Earl of Gloucester b.1222
Thomas de Clare Lord of Thomond
Maud de Clare
Idonia de Clifford
Maud Percy
Ralph de Neville 1st Earl of Westmorland
Katherine Neville
Joan Strangeways
Cecily Willoughby
Joyce Sutton
Sir Thomas Leighton
Elizabeth Leighton
Sherrington Talbot
Elizabeth Talbot
William Davenport
William Davenport
Sarah Davenport
Elizabeth Ashford
Christiana Hobbes
Harriet Albina Davis
Olive Christina Lupton b.1881
Peter Francis Middleton b.1920
Michael Francis Middleton b.1949
Kate Middleton b.1982