Personal Life
There are no substantial surviving details of Dubhaltach's personal life. It is unknown if he married or ever had children. His brothers were Padraig (fl. 1663), Diarmaid, and Seamus (fl. 1656) but no sisters are mentioned. Nor does he record the year his father died, or even his mother's name. During the 1690s, one "Dudley Forbissy, Ardneere, clerk, commonly called Prior of the Abbey of Ardnaree" appears on a list of persons "Outlawed for Foreign Treason". However, the precise identity of this Father Dubhaltach Mac Fhirbhisigh of the Order of St. Augustine is not known.
In 1842, a letter (dated 15 August 1842, Dublin) was received by the Royal Irish Academy from one John Mac Firbis, a farmer, "in a humble state of poverty," from the parish of Lackan, County Sligo. He stated that he was "fifth in descent from the younger and only brother of Duald Mac Firbis," that, "the sisters of the said Duald ... retired into Spain, where they ended their lives in a convent." Having been informed that works by Dubhaltach and his family were in the possession of the R.I.A., Mac Firbis stated that he "humbly hopes, from the honor and humanity of the Noblemen and Gentlemen composing the Royal Irish Academy, that he will be allowed some consideration for those works of his ancestors." Mac Firbis is listed as John Forbes in the 1834 Tithe Allotments but there is no trace of him or his family in the 1856 Griffith's Evaluations. O Muralie suggests that as the letter was written in Dublin, Mac Firbis and his family may have been seeking financial aid while emigrating from Ireland.
Under the Anglicised surname Forbes, descendants of the Clan MacFhirbhisigh are still to be found in small numbers in north Mayo, mainly in and about the town of Ballina.
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