The baronies of Bourke of Connell (1580) and Bourke of Brittas (1618), both forfeited in 1691, were bestowed on branches of the family which has also still representatives in the baronetage and landed gentry of Ireland.
Connellsville was first settled in 1770, was laid out as a town by Zachariah Connell, in whose honour it was named, in 1793, and was incorporated in 1806.
Like the family of O'Neill, that of O'Donnell was descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, king of Ireland at the beginning of the 5th century; the O'Neills, or Cinel l Owen, tracing their pedigree to Owen (Eoghan), and the O'Donnells, or Cinel Connell, to Conall Gulban, both sons of Niall.
Tyrconnel, the district named after the Cinel Connell, where the O'Donnells held sway, comprised the greater part of the modern county of Donegal except the peninsula of Inishowen; and since it lay conterminous with the territory ruled by the O'Neills of Tyrone, who were continually attempting to assert their supremacy over it, the history of the O'Donnells is for the most part a record of tribal warfare with their powerful neighbours, and of their own efforts to make good their claims to the overlordship of northern Connaught.
For fuller information regard - ing the Scottish parish see Connell on Teinds; Duncan's Parochial Ecclesiastical Law; the Cobden Club essays on Local Government and Taxation in the United Kingdom (1882); Goudy and Smith's Local Government in Scotland; Atkinson, Local Government in Scotland.
