MacDermot Roe

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MacDermot-Roe (MacDiarmata Ruadh) is the name of a sept of the MacDermot Kings of Moylurg. Their ancestor, Dermot Dall mac Conor mac Cormac MacDermott, was blinded by Aedh mac Felim Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht, in 1266. Dermot Dall's grandson, Dermot Ruadh, was regarded as the founder of the sept as it is named after him.

Within two hundred years of their birth as a distinct sept, the MacDermot-Roe's had become Lords of Tir Tuathail in northeastern Co. Roscommon, apparently displacing the MacManus family. By the early 1600s their holdings had extended south to Ballinahow (Cavetown) and Ardcarn, and west to Tibohine.

Under the leadership of Connor MacDermot-Roe, the family made an act of Surrender and Regrant to the English Crown in 1607 and thereby preserved their property in the wake of the Nine Years War (Ireland). The family seat was at Camagh, later called Ballyfarnan, now called Alderford. They seem to have prospered, as out of a total of forty-one MacDermots listed in a grant of 1617 in Moylurg, nineteen were MacDermot-Roe's.

The some members of a senior line of the family became Protestant and identified themselves primarily with the British section of Irish society. Others remained both in Ireland and tru to their Catholic faith. The MacDermot-Roe's still exist in a wide diaspra across Ireland, UK and the USA.