The FEENEY families are most closely associated with Connacht, the Irish homeland of the two prominent septs of the name - O Fianneadha, pronounced Fiannai, which means "soldier". This is the clan of Sligo and Mayo.  There is also O Fidhne, the clan of Galway and maybe Roscommon. The 1640 invasion of Ireland by Oliver Cromwell brought these two clans together in the common defense of the Motherland, making it virtually impossible to trace our present day FEENEYs to one sept or the other. This FEENEY DNA Project is intended to change this. Ulster FEENEYs may belong to the O Maolfhiona sept who first anglicized their name MULFINNY, but later adopted FEENEY and FINNY. Other name variants include Feaney, Feanny, Feany, Feenee, Feny, and even McFeney. 

Do you know where your family originated?

Feeny households in mid-19th century Ireland were primarily located during the property valuation survey of Ireland during the years 1847-1864 (commonly known as Griffith's Valuation).  There were Feeny/Feeney families in many counties. The number of families in each of these counties is listed as follows:

Antrim – 1; Armagh – 1; Belfast City – 3; Carlow – 1; Cork – 2; Derry – 33; Donegal – 10; Down – 2; Dublin – 5; Dublin City – 1; Galway – 79; Kerry – 1; Kildare – 2; Kilkenny – 5;Laois – 1;

Leitrim – 18; Longford – 24; Mayo – 40; Meath – 1; Monaghan – 1; Offaly – 8; Roscommon – 71  Sligo – 153; Tipperary – 12; Tyrone – 1; Waterford – 11; Westmeath – 6; Wicklow - 1