THE  Ó COIGLIGH (Quigley) FAMILY:
Have you ever heard someone called a jinx? The term originated with the Ó Coigligh family. The Quigley family, (also known as Ó Coigligh, depending on the generation you're talking to) is a family of inbred, half-crazy (and sometimes considerably more than half), dirt-poor scum with the pride of purebloods and the bearings of mad paupers. Their name is trash and their dignity a joke. In a world where magical folk can live for centuries, the Quigley's rarely make it past the early 30's—in part because of all the health problems they've brought on themselves from decades of marrying their cousins, but mostly because of that whole jinx/bucket of curses thing mentioned above. They've been a part of Irish wizarding history for as long as it has been recorded—or so they claim, since most of the records of their history from before the 14th century were eaten by a voracious kelpie and there is, subsequently, no proof. They are very proud of this, even though they probably shouldn't be, due to the fact that they are most well known for is the Potato Blight.

A few centuries back, Éibhear Ó Coigligh was a mediocre potionsmaster and experimental herbologist from Galway with a monumental overdose of arrogance and inflated ego. When one of his creations went horribly, horribly wrong, the result was the major contributor to the most devastating chapter in Irish history-the Potato Blight, leading to the Great Hunger. The witches and wizards who survived were understandably horrified, and they banded together and cast every known curse and jinx, and quite a few that weren't known and have been forgotten, on Éibhear and his descendants. In other words, the Ó Coigligh family is quite literally cursed with perennial bad luck. They are a family of jinxes.

The past decades have been devastating on the family. Not a one of them have a knut left to their name—though some have been known to borrow and steal to put on an illusion (or rather, a thinly-veiled delusion) of grandeur. They still live in the palatial family "mansion" outside the Gaeltacht (Irish/Gaeilge-speaking town) of An Cheathrú Rua, Ireland (Carrowroe), and are raised speaking Irish before English in another purist attitude example. The mansion is disgusting and dilapidated, as cursed as the family that lives there. It's a massive, booby-trapped rat-maze infested with every magical parasite and mold you can think of. Nearly every drawer and closet has a boggart, and the portraits scream obscenities from dark, filthy hallways, while some of the more mad residents of the family sit in rotting wedding dresses plotting destruction of the Ministry and all that.

Most of the Ó Coigligh's are either born crazy and stay that way, or a combination of distorted genetics and a life of miserable luck make them that way. They die young, live hard, and there's not many of them left.


THE FAMILY TREE/ADOPTABLES:
Does not exist, because there are waaaay too many cousins marrying cousins and half-siblings and general unpleasant muckiness. But if you would like to be a part, feel free to make ANYONE up. The only concrete character is Colm's twin sister, Aisling, who is a seer and crazier than he is.

CURRENTLY PLAYED:
Colm Quigley