They have been defined by Katherine Simms as: "... the earliest, most aristocratic and best documented example of increasing nomadism in the northern half of Ireland in the late middle ages.
In spite of the fact that they were a very numerous branch of the O'Conor family, who supplied five kings to the throne of Connacht, they seem to have vanished away in the early fifteenth century, never to be heard of again.
"[1] The family held a position of overlordship in south Mayo prior to the Norman occupation of Connacht by Richard Mór de Burgh.
They attempted thereafter with short periods of success to contest for the title of the rump-Kingdom of Connacht with their cousins, the descendants of Cathal Crobhdearg Ua Conchobair.
Increasingly excluded from power after the reign of Magnus O'Conor, they left Machaire Connacht and by the 1290s their main base of activity was in Breifne O'Rourke where they developed formations of landless nomadic creaghts following their cattle-herds.