Besides personal names, our Irish ancestors had from an early period, and even from pre-historic times, a complete system of fixed clan-names by which each family-group and its subdivisions had its own distinct name. These clan-names are of great importance in tracing the early history of f...
It also gives you some insight into who your ancient Irish ancestors were, who their family was, what they did, and where they lived. Irish surnames tell an entire oral history of Irish families going deep into ancient times. While there may not be paper records to show you exa...
meaning "victorious". Coffey is one of those surnames that has not often retained the 'O' prefix. Coffey has several distinct septs that date back to the medieval times, two of which are still well represented in their original homeland. These are the ...
Robert E. Matheson's Varieties and Synonymes of Surnames and Christian Names in Ireland (see below) provides an extensive list of spelling variations and alternative names under which an individual may have been registered in the birth, marriage and death records.The...
Polonius, I know this will be hard to get your head around, but about a third of people in the UK, (if that is what you mean with your stupid expression 'Pommyland') have Irish ancestors so close, that they could get an Irish passport if they wanted. ...
This was done in the seventh century and out of it grew eventually An lebor gabala, 'Book of the taking of Ireland', which united all their dynasties and peoples by descent from a single set of ancestors. This proved to be a powerful and all-pervasive myth which used race, language, ...
We not only dressed up as our ancestors, but we actually dressed up as our enemies. I need hardly state my own conviction that the Pacifist trick of lumping the abuses of one side along with the abominations of the other, was a shallow pedantry come of sheer ignorance of the history ...
Irish surname texts, such as those of O’Hart (1892), give the impression that all modern-day Fitzpatricks took their name from a single famous man, then having the surname Mac Giolla Phádraig of an Ossory (effectively modern-day Co. Kilkenny and Co. Laois) clan, whose ancestors were ...