great skills as composers in bardic verse, it was recorded around the eleventh century their noted expertise as keepers of the horse for the Uí Maine chieftains. The duties of the keepers of the horse were apparently shared by all the members of the Uí Maine stemming from the "race of Sodhán." It was a position of high honour at a time when frequent dynastic wars and tribal feuds necessitated regional princes having their war equipment at the ready, not least their prestigious household cavalry. It was an office they held for many years before it was recorded by the eleventh century scribe. The first Mac an Bháirds The first of the family to adopt Mac an Bháird as a surname was Eoghan Mac an Bháird, sometime around the eleventh century, most likely in tribute to a noted ancestor. The first written reference to the Mac an Bháirds historically seems to be a death notice for the famous Maol Íosa Mac an Bháird (d. 1173), a renowned bishop of Uí Maine. Numerous entries for other members of the various Mac an Bháird septs can be found in the Irish annals, but especially within the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland (Annala Rioghachta Éireann), compiled by The Four Masters in Donegal in the 1630s. Nearly forty entries for the name appear in this work, spanning a period of five hundred twenty years. In collaboration with Micheál Ó Cléirigh and his team of scholars in Ireland, the entire effort was supervised by Father Hugh Ward (Aedh Mac an Bháird), rector and guardian of the great Irish College of St. Anthony in Louvain, the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium), and the most important Irish publishing center in Europe for nearly fifty years. Indeed, Dr. William Reeves, the late nineteenth century Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore and a noted Irish scholar himself, considered Hugh Ward to be the founder of Irish archaeology. Many other entries for Mac an Bháirds are recorded in the Annals of Tigernach, the Annals of Loch Cé, the Annals of Connaught, and the Annals of Ulster. Late medieval times By the fifteenth century, the Mac an Bháirds had branched out from Galway and established new septs in Tirconnell (Tír Conaill) near Lettermacaward, County Donegal – the most prolific of all the Mac an Bháird septs – and in a nearby area called Tirhugh (Tír Aodh). Other branches of the family