The first settlers at Lough Gur (Knockainy) were food gatherers who found a tremendously rich and fertile landscape.  They were a people who first arrived there circa 3,000 B. C.   For them Lough Gur must have been a perfect place to settle.  The lake provided fish and the gentle hillside produced berries, nuts and trappings for animal hunting as well as protection from the elements.  The rich limestone soils around Lough Gur next attracted some of Ireland’s earliest farmers.  Bronze Age and Iron Age people came later and brought their large herds of cattle that thrived on the rich pastureland.  These ancient people also brought with them the megalithic tradition and they considered Lough Gur to be a sacred lake.  The concentrations of ritualistic monuments, stone circles, megaliths and similar structures built around the lake on all sides are testaments to a sophisticated society.  Each new wave of these settlers merged with the ones before them and they made from this fusion a civilization.  It is from this civilization, this genetic pool that the Ó Ciarṁacáin sept of Knockainy descends.  As such their residency at Knockainy-Lough Gur spans a 5,000 year timeline contained within a five mile perimeter.