The name has evolved over many centuries, the anglicised forms coming down as MacAward, McWard, MacEward, MacEvard, Macanward, M'Ward, and its most commonly used variant today: Ward.
Additionally, considerable numbers of Latin, French, and Spanish variants can be found in Continental records: Vardeo, Bardeo, U Bart, Wardeum, Vyardes, Wardeus, not to mention Verdaeorum familiae: the Ward family.
Twenty-four generations of the family are recounted in Leabhar Ua Maine (also called the Book of the O'Kellys), extending back to quasi-historical and mythological times.
This work was compiled c. 1380, a massive, oversized vellum book written in Irish, for Muircertach ua Ceallaigh (O'Kelly), Bishop of Clonfert from 1378 to 1394.
The next quatrain tells us: "Chiefs of Cinél Rechta of lasting fame are the strong Uí Dhiarmada, the race of the bard, the well-armed stern warriors of Ulster descent."
In this version of the family's descent, Sodhán's son eventually settles the tribes in Connacht, where they are given land by the legendary (and probably mythological) Queen Maeve.
The poem continues, praising the "brownish, fair-haired" Mac an Bháirds as trustworthy and loyal, while their gatherings are occasion for the chief of the name to be surrounded "by his fearless, active, well-armed, genial band."
The poem continues, exhorting Seán Mac an Bháird to hold on to "the gladsome region handed down through twenty generations" into which the foreigners, so the poet boasts, never set foot.
In addition to their great skills as composers in bardic verse, it was recorded around the eleventh century their noted expertise as keepers of the horse for the Uí Maine chieftains.
Perhaps the last of the family's great bardic poets was Pádraig Óg Mac an Bháird, who composed his works towards the end of the seventeenth century.
These Mac an Bháird chieftains retained residences in three different castles in the area during the early- and mid-seventeenth century, at Ballymacward, Carrowantanny, and in the village of Annagh.