There is no doubt that many Kennedys would have preferred to stay in their home baronies of Upper and Lower Ormond in North Tipperary where they were well-established landowners. Prior to the Cromwellian dispossessions of 1656 a few adventurous non-landholder Kennedys took up offers of employment as stewards, husbandmen, yeomen and kerns in other counties. A lone weaver found his way to County Kerry. Some of those who left North Tipperary eventually took up trades such as boatmen hauling cargo or fishing on the rivers to the south. After the dispossessions some families fled to the mountains where they had traditionally kept their cattle in secluded booleys that were difficult to locate. Others stayed on as workers for the foreigners who had acquired their lands. Many Kennedys had no option but to move to where they could find a place to settle. This movement eventually resulted in Irish Kennedys moving to every one of the twenty-six counties in what is now the Irish Republic. Much of the story of the movement of the Kennedys has been told in my other Kennedy books. This book drills deeper into the story of the Kennedy families who moved eastward into nine baronies adjacent to Ormond. Many of their descendants are still in these baronies to this day. They are an integral part of the great Irish Kennedy family that has developed over the last thousand years.
