Kane, and O'Kane are the most common anglicised versions of the Irish O Cathain, from a diminutive of cath, meaning "battle". Kane and O'Kane are most frequent in Ulster, where O Cathain arose as a surname in the Laggan district of east Donegal, as part of the Cenel Eoghain, the large group of families descended from Eoghan, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fifth-century monarch who founded the Ui Neill dynasty and was supposedly responsible for the kidnapping of St. Patrick to Ireland. In the twelfth century these Ulster O Cathain conquered a large territory to the east of their original homeland around Coleraine and Keenaght in what is now Co. Derry and remained powerful and important in that area down to the wars of the seventeenth century. Their last chief died in the Tower of London in 1628. Two other common surnames, McClosky and McAvinney, are offshoots of O Cathain, stemming respectively from the twelfth-century Bloskey O Cathain, and Aibhne O Cathain. Kane remains particularly common in the Coleraine district of Co. Derry, and in the adjoining county of Antrim.