Peadar Ó hAnnracháin, Gaelic League Organiser, Cois Life, ‘OUR DUBLIN LETTER’ in the Southern Star. He often uses the phrase ‘long tailed family’ I think it roughly equated to a common phrase in obituaries in the Skibbereen Eagle adn Southern Star as the deceased bring of ‘an old and respected family’ applying to both Catholics and Protestants.
Looking at their obits in detail one category rarely appears and these are what Tod Andrew called ‘the people of no property’, labourers, those living in lanes in the villages and towns. The detailed obits show the immediate family then cousins, in laws, the the general public headed by the most important locals. Those who get obituaries are the middling to large farmers and business people. When you look at the over time you can discern the networks. Well known locally at the time but now forgotten.
The Gaels were defeated at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 the Chiefs went into exile. But a few increments below elements of the old families prospered as large tenant farmers and business people. The tend to be under the radar live modestly but they have the cash.Taking the triangle of Bantry/Drimoleague/Skibbereen quite a number are sufficiently well off the advance monies to local landlord families from the 1780s. See enclosed listing of deeds.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Au-UGjP43dORmzGc0v37jNZGXVHRBsSfDQl_2aLuD5c/edit
The would include the Blairs, Hutchinsons, Evanson, beggars on horseback with hardly a pot to piss in. There is an equivalent Protestant network of the same broad social and economic class like the Swantons of Ballydehob and the Shannons of Brahalish, Durrus, often they both work together as Grand Jury contractors or building work.
The class of people I am talking about tend to marry within the extended group and over a wider geographic area. Here the obits show the relationships.
Funeral listing:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A8vkAzsRVEhpiP2EOryWiYcEryJw0ic4DmnKe6vZEqI/edit
West Cork History 
Wonderful work. Thank you.
LikeLike
Thanks for highlighting this. Obituaries would sometimes mention members of junior branches as from an ‘old and respected family’ (who were not wealthy at all) and this can be very useful for genealogical research. In my experience, Catholic families so described in the late 19th and early 20th centuries tend to descend from the wealthier 18th century tenant farmers and have a connection with the Church by providing priests and patronage. In many cases they were a hidden gentry and it was well known they were descended from the landholders of confiscated lands in the 17th century.
LikeLike