In ancient Irish times, if you wished to survive interclan strife and usurping raiders, it was sensible to live inland – some distance from navigational rivers - up in the hills, on barren land - away from greedy neighbours and raiding Norsemen. If you did that, it was still not quite enough, for you had to be wily and shrewd. The O’Ciardha [Keary] land bordered Loch Derg and the River Shannon’s southern shore. The land included loch-side and lowland grassland and upland mineral bearing hills - all in today’s northern Tipperary County. The neighbours to the west were the O’Carroll’s and to the east, the O’Kennedys… boxed in by the O’Meara, to the south. Follow a line… up the river Shannon round King’s County then across to Dublin, you separate Ireland roughly in half – lands of the southern and northern O’Neill’s. This is a story about an ancient clan – part of the Ciarraige tribe.