The Flynn surname can also be found in Clare, Cork, Kerry, and Roscommon.
The Murray surname is especially prolific in Donegal. The common Irish surname Collins originated in Limerick, though after the Norman invasion they fled to Cork. Surnames of Ireland A Supplement to Ireland's History in Maps Surname - Early County Origin - Other Origins and Forms Archbold - Wicklow - Anglo-Norman Archdeacon - Kilkenny - Norman, le Ercedekne, later Mac Ó Oda Archer - Dublin, Kilkenny - Norman, le Archer Athy - Kildare, Galway - Norman (Cambro, Anglo?)
The Brennan surname in Ireland is now mostly found in County Sligo and the province of Leinster. Individuals with the Irish surname Callaghan (also spelled Callahan) are most numerous in Clare and Cork.
13. Mac an Bhreitheamhan, 'son of the judge', became 'Judge'. Three distinct O Connell clans, located in the provinces of Connacht, Ulster, and Munster, are the originators of many of the Connell families in Clare, Galway, Kerry. Farrell is a surname generally meaning "valiant warrior. The undaunted American widow returned to Ireland in the midst of the Great Famine and helped organise relief for the destitute and hungry. In Europe, the adoption of hereditary surnames began in the Middle Ages, over the period between about 900 and about 1300 and continued at very different paces in different locations. Mac, sometimes written Mc, is the Gaelic word for "son" and was attached to the father's name or trade.
In urban areas, at least, most surnames were fixed and hereditary by the 1700s. Ó Dubhthaigh, anglicized to Duffy, comes from an Irish name meaning black or swarthy. Initially, surnames were common only among the aristocracy.
The reason is simple. The Gallagher clan has been in County Donegal since the 4th century and Gallagher is the most common surname in this area. There is also a MacCarroll family (anglicized to MacCarvill) from the province of Ulster. After the collapse of the old Gaelic order in the seventeenth century, the only public administration was in English, even though most people spoke Irish as their first language for the following two centuries. How many variant spellings of Lenihan are there at. His account of the journey provides invaluable eyewitness testimony to the trauma and tragedy that many emigrants had to face en route to their new lives in Canada and America. The Scotch-Irish in America tells the story of how the hardy breed of men and women, who in America came to be known as the ‘Scotch-Irish’, was forged in the north of Ireland during the seventeenth century.
Norman surnames in Ireland - despite the common misconception, the Normans were not English and Norman surnames provide us with ample evidence to dispel this common myth.
List of Major Anglo Norman Families, with Researchers, Curators and Links.
For that reason, it conveys the reality of the calamity in a much more telling way. Four generations later, Constantine (Consaidín) O'Brien, bishop of Killaloe, was the source of the Mac Consaidín line, the Considines. For example, the grandchildren of Brian Ború (d. 1014) understandably wanted to flag their connection and started the surname O'Brian (Ó Briain). Today Shea is very rare and O'Shea by far the most common. So Ó Foghlú, from foghlaí , 'a robber', became Foley. Initially, the Normans kept their own identity, but became subsumed into gaelic culture over subsequent decades.
If you have a son called Peter, his name is Peter Martinson.
Although the spelling matters to us now, before the 20th century extraordinary variations regularly occur in different records - illiteracy was rife, for large numbers Irish was their native language, and most people simply had more important things on their minds. In the rest of Europe, surnames could be locational - Leonardo da Vinci, 'Leonard from Vinci' - occupational - Baker, Smith, Thatcher - or derived from descriptive nicknames - Belcher, Little, Short. The Byrne surname is still very common in Wicklow, as well as Dublin and Louth. Johnston is the most common name in the Irish province of Ulster. Spelled de Faoite or Mac Faoitigh in Ireland, this common name stems mainly from the "le Whytes" who came to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans.
Descendants of the O Conor kings of Connacht, the Reillys are primarily from Cavan, Cork, Longford, and Meath. The O Byrne (Ó Broin) family originally came from Kildare, until the Anglo-Normans arrived and they were driven south to the Wicklow mountains. The apostrophe that usually follows the O actually comes from a misunderstanding by English-speaking clerks in Elizabethan time, who interpreted it as a form of the word "of."
In the 4th century, the Dohertys settled around the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal, where they've primarily stayed. With the revival of interest in Irish at the end of the nineteenth century, individuals began to reclaim the O and Mc prefixes. The O Boyles were chieftains in Donegal, ruling west Ulster with the O Donnells and the O Doughertys. Medieval Irish society was organised around the extended family. Nolan families have always been very numerous in Carlow, and can also be found in Fermanagh, Longford, Mayo, and Roscommon.