Éile

The clan or people of Éile claimed descent from Cian, a younger son of Ailill Aulom and brother of Eógan Mór, and thus had kinship with the Eóganachta.

Historian C. Thomas Cairney, stated that the Ely were from the tribes known as the Laigin who also had a branch known as the Dumnonii and who were the third wave of Celts to settle in Ireland during the first century BC.

Alternatively, they were actually kindred but regional politics influenced later genealogists to associate them with different provincial dynasties at different periods.

The native lords, O'Meagher and O'Fogarty, were left in possession of their lands, but were obliged to pay tribute to the Earl of Ormond.

[7] Ely O'Carroll and the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybritt were part of Munster until the early 17th-century (1606) but are now located in County Offaly and Leinster.

This was done in the early Stuart period to remove the O'Carroll lands from the claim and control of the Earls of Ormond's County Palantine of Tipperary and from the Presidency of Munster.