O'Neills of Portugal
The O'Neills of Clanaboy in Antrim, the other branch of O'Neill princes, continued to live in Antrim after the Flight of the Earls; they received no English title higher than knighthood.
In 1740, the chief of the Clanaboy O'Neills, and his brothers, settled in Portugal, and the family became Portuguese peers. The chief in 1896, Jorge O'Neill, was interested in his Gaelic heritage; in that year, he wrote to the Ulster King of Arms and the Somerset Herald submitting proofs of his distant cousinhood to the Earls of Tyrone, and the Somerset Herald acknowledged his representation of the "Royal House of O'Neill", and registered his arms as those of O'Neill of Clanaboy. This collateral descent, however, does not give any claim to the Earlship of Tyrone.
Jorge O'Neill then began to use the title of Count (conde) of Tyrone; the King of Portugal offered to grant him a Portuguese countship of that style, and he declined. His title was recognized by the Pope and by the Registrar of Portuguese Nobility, which thereby acknowledged him as a former sovereign prince.
The heads of that family since 1901 have been:
- Jorge O'Neill, (1848–1925); succeeded his father as head in 1890; patron of the Irish Volunteers in 1914.
- Hugo José Jorge O'Neill, (1874–1940), eldest son.
- Jorge Maria O'Neill, (1908–1992), eldest son.
- Hugo Ricciardi O'Neill, (b. 1939), eldest son; chooses to be "O'Neill of Clanaboy", as a Gaelic title.
Read more about this topic: Count Of Tyrone