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In retirement Genealogy has become an active hobby of mine. In the course of finding out about our family history, the derivation and meaning of our surnames has been a subset of the search. Since the information might be of interest to others, I have included it on my webpage. I hope that some or all of you will find this of interest. You should be aware that this is a 10-page document.

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First posted to the web 14 Nov 2000
Date Last Modified: 8Sep2018

The Cahill Family Irish Surnames

There are three parts to this Cahill Family Surnames article:

Part A – General Background on Irish names
Part B – Our Family Surnames
Part C – Province/County Distribution of Our Surnames

Clicking on any of the above will take you to the section you wish to read.

The sources from which I copied the information are referenced and can be found at the end of the document. [Click here to jump to the Sources.]

 

GENERAL BACKGROUND ON IRISH SURNAMES.

The history of Ireland is a great drama of war, invasion, plantation, immigration, emigration, conflict and solidarity. Like all history, however, it is composed of countless individual family histories, each unique. Surnames are the point where history and family history intersect, marking individuality and kinship.

The intermingling of cultures in Ireland — Gaelic, Viking, Norman, British —has created a huge number of surnames and left ambiguity surrounding the origins of many of them, an ambiguity that is itself a feature of Irishness. No description of Irish families and their surnames can afford to ignore this by selecting only those that match the history of one part of the population or one part of the island. [1]

During the long centuries of English domination, Irish surnames were crudely Anglicized. The Irish Gaelic language was proscribed, and surnames were Anglicized phonetically or by translation. At its mildest, the prefixes Mac and O’ were abandoned and at worst, Irish surnames were distorted beyond all recognition by translation and confusion. Since Irish independence in 1921, a reversal has set in so that Irish people are now adopting Gaelicized forms of their names even though some names are actually of Norman French or English origin. [2]

The successive invasions of Ireland from Strongbow to Cromwell, culminating in the final destruction of the Gaelic order and the long drawn out subjection of the Irish people under the eighteenth century penal code, together with the plantations of foreign settlers and the more peaceful infiltration of Englishmen in the commercial life of the country, have made Irish surnames more mixed than those of a nation with a less disturbed history. There is nothing comparable to it in any of our nearer neighbors such as England, France, Germany, Holland or Spain where foreign names are exceptional and native ones are seldom hidden under alien guise. This latter is a phenomenon, which is extremely common in Ireland.

In treating of Irish surnames it is necessary to decide what is meant by Irish in this connection. We have already without hesitation accepted as such the families of Norman stock, which came to this country in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It is not, in fact, until we come to the seventeenth century that any serious difficulty confronts us in the problem under consideration. In that century Ireland was for the first time really conquered and subdued by her powerful and aggressive neighbor. These events led to three major plantations or wholesale transfers of land from the ancient owners to strangers from overseas—commonly called The Plantation of Ulster (up to that the most Gaelic part of Ireland), the Cromwellian Settlement and the Williamite Forfeitures. This meant that those settlers looked to Britain for support and protection. The center of gravity, so to speak, for large numbers of persons living in Ireland became London, whereas previously men’s loyalties had centered around the castle of their chief or, at farthest, the city of Dublin.

Thus was deliberately created what is termed the Anglo-Irish ascendancy. The families comprising this class have been slow to become an integral part of the Irish nation, if indeed they can be said to have done so even now. It is only right to observe that the "Ascendancy" included many families of Gaelic origin which, as a result of the anti-papist Penal Code, conformed to the state religion and, becoming landlords in the modern sense, threw in their lot with the new Cromwellian gentry so much despised by their ancestors. It is probably true to say that the majority of this group on either side of the border feel a keener sense of loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II than to the Republic of Ireland. The question is how far they can be counted as Irish, with particular reference to the inclusion of their names in this book. It is obvious that the mere fact of birth in Ireland, though constituting a man an Irish citizen by law, does not ipso facto make him an Irishman in the sense required of us in a work on Irish families and surnames.

It has often been stated that surnames were introduced into Ireland by King Brian Boru. Though this cannot be accepted as historically accurate it is a fact that Ireland was one of the first countries to adopt a system of hereditary surnames or perhaps it would be truer to say that such a system developed spontaneously. At any rate the Macs and O’s were well established as such more than a century before the Cambro-Normans or, as they are more usually called, the Anglo-Normans, came.

It is hardly necessary to state that these prefixes denote descent, Mac (son) indicating that the surname was formed from the personal names, or sometimes calling of the father of the first man to bear that surname, while O names are derived from a grandfather or even earlier ancestor ó or ua being the Irish word for grandson, or more loosely male descendant.

Prior to the introduction of surnames there was in Ireland a system of clan-names, which the use of surnames gradually rendered obsolete except as territorial designations. Groups of families, many of them descended from a common ancestor, were known by collective clan-names such as Dál Cais (whence the adjective Dalcassian), Ui Máine (or Hy Many), Cinel Eoghain, Clann Cholgain, Corca Laidhe. The expression "tribe-names", used by John O'Donovan in this connection, is perhaps more expressive, though a more modern authority, Professor Eoin MacNeill, objected to this term as misleading. In some cases the tribe-name did subsequently become the surname of a leading family of the clan or tribe, but as a rule this did not happen; and, as the tribe name was usually identical with the surname acquired by some quite unrelated sept in another part of the country, confusion is apt to arise.

The first of the major invasions of Ireland in historical times (1169-1172) resulted in the formation of a new set of surnames belonging to the Norman families which in due course became more Irish than the Irish. Today none would regard Fitzgerald or Burke as any less Irish than O'Connor or MacCarthy.

The second great upheaval, five hundred years later, was of a more devastating character. In the seventeenth century the dire effects of conquest were intensified by religious persecution, and the three main events of that century resulting from military aggression - the Plantation of Ulster, the Cromwellian Settlement and the Williamite forfeitures - followed by the Penal Code which was at its severest in the first half of the eighteenth century, inevitably led to a lack of accord between the new settlers and the old inhabitants of the country. The natural process of assimilation was thus retarded, indeed it is not too much to say that it was deliberately prevented. Thus the Elizabethan immigrants and those that followed them in the next century did not become hibernicized as the Normans had.

A feature of the degradation of the Gael and the inferiority complex it produced was the wholesale discarding of the distinctive prefixes O and Mac. Nor was this confined to the downtrodden peasantry. The few Catholic gentry who managed to maintain to some extent their social position, while keeping their O’s and Macs within the ambit of their own entourage (usually in the remoter parts of the country), were so deeply conscious of belonging to a conquered nation that they frequently omitted the prefixes when dealing with Protestants, not only in legal matters but also in ordinary social intercourse. Thus we find Daniel O'Connell's uncle, that picturesque figure universally known as "Hunting Cap", signing himself Maurice Connell as late as 1803 when approaching the Knight of Kerry to enlist his influence in a court case. While MacDermott, Chief of the Name, though ranking as a prince among his own people and himself a prominent banker in the middle of the eighteenth century, invariably signed himself simply Anthony Dermott.

In the eighteenth century the Penal Code had no bearing on the use of Mac and O but it did, no doubt, mark the beginning of the practice of translating Irish names into English, which in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became widespread and proved more often to be mistranslation than translation. Nevertheless pressure was exerted in other ways to bring about the degaelicization of surnames.

The widespread belief outside Ireland is that Mac is essentially a Scottish prefix. To an Irishman this idea is absurd, for many of our foremost Irish families bear Mac names such as MacCarthy, MacGuinness, MacGrath, MacGillycuddy, MacKenna, MacMahon, MacNamara and so on. Nevertheless, it is a fallacy widely held. It is true, of course, that many Mac names in Ulster are Scottish in origin, having come in with the seventeenth century planters; and these tended to retain their Gaelic prefix when those of Catholic Ireland fell into disuse. In any case the Scottish Gaels are originally of Irish stock and Scotland herself took her name from the word Scotia which in Latin was at first used to denote the land inhabited by the Irish race.

At the beginning of the present century under the growing influence of the Gaelic League a general reversal of the process began to be perceptible. Yet even today there are scores of Gaelic names with which the prefix is seldom if ever seen, e.g. Boland, Brophy, Connolly, Corrigan, Crowe, Ganey, Hennessy, Kirby, Larkin, to mention a few of the commonest.

The extent of this resumption can best be illustrated by the mere fact that while in 1890, according to Matheson's calculations, there were twice as many Connells as O’Connells, today, (judging by such tests as directories) we have nine O'Connells for every Connell. I do not know the present proportion of O'Kellys to Kellys, but I am sure it is very much higher than it was in 1890 when the official estimate for all Ireland was 55,900 Kellys and only a mere 400 O'Kellys.

Another class of Mac surnames which is of interest is the assumption by Norman families of surnames of a Gaelic type and the formation under those designations of what practically amounts to septs or sub-septs on the Gaelic model. The majority of these are nearly extinct today. This practice of forming sub-septs was not confined to Norman families.

Fitzpatrick, which up to the seventeenth century was MacGilpatrick, is in a class by itself, being the only Fitz name which is Gaelic: otherwise Fitz (from French fils) also denotes a Norman origin. It is possible, however, that some of the Fitzhenrys may originally have been MacEnery.

Unless we adopt an exclusive and doctrinaire attitude, we must admit Fitzgerald, Fitzgibbon and Fitzmaurice as Irish. As I have already remarked many other Norman surnames are among our best known surnames today. It would be ridiculously pedantic to regard these as any thing but Irish. Not only have they been continuously in Ireland for seven or eight centuries, but they are also not found in England except, of course, when introduced by Irish settlers there. [3]

Irish surnames are never derived from place names. The reverse is in fact the case. Ballymahon is a typical example of one of the many place names derived from a surname: it is named as ‘the townland of Mahon’. [2] Those place names beginning with Bally and other Irish words were almost all formed before the seventeenth century and too often when a family was thus distinguished it has ceased to exist or has almost died out in the immediate neighborhood of the particular townland so designated, but in many cases they are still numerous there. Nearly all such are Gaelic or Hiberno-Norman family names. There are, however, some exceptions such as Ballybunion and Ballyraddock, which are formed from the English surnames Bunyan and Maddock. [3]

Everyone knows the old rhyme which ends with the lines "And if he lacks both O and Mac, no Irishman is he". Like most general statements this is not wholly true for, disregarding the undoubted claims of the Burkes, Fitzgeralds etc., we must admit Creagh, Deasy, Crone, Maghery and the other descriptive surnames as genuinely Gaelic. Indeed two of the best known and essentially Irish names, Kavanagh and Kinsella, have neither O nor Mac, for they are the descriptive type.

We have already noticed instances of the sub-division of the great septs and the consequent formation in the Middle Ages of new surnames like MacConsidine. This arose for various reasons, not the least of which was the desirability of readily distinguishing between a number of people of the same name. For a similar reason a system of nomenclature exists today, particularly in the western counties, whereby the father's christian name is added to a man's legal name. Thus in Clare, where there may well be several Patrick O'Briens in a single townland, they are known as Patrick O’ Brien John, Patrick O'Brien Michael and so on. This is not merely a colloquial convenience, for these designations are used in ordinary business transactions such as completing an order form or supplying milk to a creamery, and they appear very frequently in the official voters' lists.

A similar practice, very much in vogue in Limerick in the seventeenth century, has misled some writers unfamiliar with Irish conditions. The normal method was to add the father's name, as in the example given above, but with the prefix Fitz. Thus, to take a well-known Limerick surname, John Arthur son of Stephen Arthur was almost invariably described as John Arthur FitzStephen, so that to the uninitiated the man's surname appears to be FitzStephen.

In this connection it must not be forgotten that a not inconsiderable number of people in the lower stratum of society did not use hereditary surnames even as late as 1650. [3]

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OUR FAMILY SURNAMES (alphabetical ignoring the Mac and O)

BOYLE, O’BOYLE

Boyle, or O’Boyle, is now one of the fifty most common surnames in Ireland. Boyle is Ó Baoighill in modern Irish, the derivation of which is possibly from the old Irish word baigell, i.e. having profitable pledges. It is thus of course a true native Irish surname. In the Middle Ages the family were powerful, sharing control of the entire northwest of the island with the O’Donnells and the O’Dohertys, and the strongest association of the family is still with Co. Donegal, where (O)Boyle is the third most numerous name in the county. They shared with the O’Donnells and the O’Doughertys the leadership of the northwest. Ballyweel, near Donegal town, is a phonetic rendering of Baile ui Bhaoighill (i.e. the home of the O’Boyles). These O’Boyles were noted for their ruddy complexion.

The majority of those bearing the name are of Gaelic origin, but many Irish Boyles have separate, Norman origins. In Ulster, a significant number are descended from the Scottish Norman family of de Boyville, whose name comes from the town Beauville in Normandy. Nevertheless the best-known Boyles connected with Ireland were men of English race.

When Richard Boyle landed in Ireland from Kent in 1588 as a young man without influence few could have anticipated that he would become what has been termed the "first colonial millionaire". He acquired the extensive property of the executed Sir Walter Raleigh in Co. Waterford. This formed the nucleus of the vast estates he was to bequeath to his numerous family on his death in 1643, by which time he was Earl of Cork and had held high government office. (cf. CROWLEY below) The best known of his sons (born in Ireland) were Roger Boyle (1621-1679) Earl of Orrery, and Robert Boyle (1627-1691), chemist and experimental physicist. It is worthy of note that of 15 Boyles in the Dictionary of National Biography 14 belong to this Anglo-Irish family.

Some Gaelic-Irish Boyles or O’Boyles have also distinguished themselves, notably William Boyle (1853-1922) Abbey Theatre dramatist, John Boyle (d. 1832) the well-known wit, and Richard Boyle (1822-1908) the railway engineer whose heroism during the Indian Mutiny won renown. It is only in comparatively recent times that the discarded prefix O has been at all widely restored. [1 & 3]

CAHILL, O’CAHILL

Anglicized form of Gaelic O’Cathail ‘descendant of Cathal’, a personal name composed of the proto-Celt elements cad battle + valos powerful, mighty or ‘strong in battle.’ Cahill is one of those surnames seldom if ever found in modem times with its proper prefix O. O’Cahill is one of the earliest surnames on record: Flann O’Cahill was martyred in 938.

Families of the name arose separately in different parts of Ireland, in Kerry, Galway, Tipperary and Clare. In early mediaeval times the most important sept of O’Cahill was that located in Co. Galway near the Clare border, the head of which was Chief of Kinelea (Aughty), but by the middle of the thirteenth century their former position as the leading family in Kilmacduagh had been taken by the O’Shaughnessys. The name is uncommon there now, but is found in Co. Clare where a branch of the sept was also established. There were several quite distinct septs of O’Cahill: one of these was located near Lough Leane in Kerry and another in Co. Tipperary between Thurles and Templemore. There are no less than three townlands called Ballycahill in Co. Tipperary which perpetuate the original habitat of that sept. Two other Ballycahills, one in Co. Galway, between Portumna and Killimor, the other in Co. Clare near Ballyvaughan, also indicate the location of those septs. The southern families flourished, and the name is now most common in counties Cork, Kerry and Tipperary, while it is relatively infrequent in its other original homes. [1, 2, & 3]

CLIFFORD, O’COLMAN, Coleman

An English habitation name from any of the various places, for example in Devon, Gloucestershire, Herefords, and West Yorks, so called from Old English clef or slope + ford Ford. Variant: Clifforth. [2]

Though families called Coleman are known to have settled in Ireland as early as the thirteenth century, having come from England, where the name is numerous, Coleman in Ireland almost always denotes a Gaelic origin. The sept of Ó Colmáin, a branch of the Ui Fiachrach, was located in the barony of Tireragh, Co. Sligo, and representatives of it are still living in north Connacht. Colemans, however, are more numerous in Co. Cork. These are of a sept called Ó Clúmháin in Irish which, like the foregoing, originated in Co. Sligo. The branch of it which migrated to Munster became numerically strong. Indeed they are even more numerous than would appear from statistics at first sight, because Ó Clúmháin has also been anglicized Clifford and there are many Cliffords in Kerry and Cork. Clifford, like Coleman, is a well known indigenous surname in England, but only a small proportion of Irish Cliffords are of English origin. [3]

FAHY, O‘FAHY

Anglicized form of Gaelic O’Fathaigh ‘descendant of Fathach’, a personal name probably derived from fothadh base or foundation. Variations: O’Fahy, O’Fa(u)ghy, O’Faye, Fahey, Faughy, Fay, Foy; Green (a result of erroneous association with faithche lawn). English version of the name is ‘Vahey’. [1 & 2]

Apart from modem migrants to the larger cities it can be said that Fahy (also spelt Fahey) is almost exclusively a Co. Galway name, though of course it is also to be found in the areas bordering that county, such as north Tipperary. A sept of the Ui Máine (or Hy Many), the center of their patrimony, which they held as proprietors up to the time of the Cromwellian upheaval and where most of them still dwell, is Loughrea. Their territory was known as Pobal Mhuintir ui Fhathaigh, which means the country inhabited, by and belonging to the Fahys. In this Fahy homeland there is a place the modern name of which is Fahysvillage. Fahy is ó Fathaigh in Irish. In some places this is anglicized Vahey instead of Fahey, and occasionally Fay which, however, is a distinct surname except in some rare instances in Co. Galway. [3]

The best-known bearer of the name was Francis Arthur Fahy (1854-1935), songwriter and literary man, who paved the way for the Irish Literary Revival through his lifelong involvement with the Gaelic League and the London Irish Literary Society. [1]

KELLY, O’KELLY, Queally, (O’Keily)

There are approximately 50,000 Kellys and O’Kellys in Ireland today. It is the second commonest Irish surname, not far behind Murphy in numerical strength. This name presents a remarkable example of the extent to which the prefixes O and Mac, so widely dropped during the period of Gaelic submergence, have been resumed. In the year 1890 there were 1,242 births registered as Kelly (distributed all over the country), while only nine were registered as O’Kelly. Today the proportion has risen from one in 130 to approximately one in twenty. [3]

Kelly comes from the Irish Ó Ceallaigh, based on Ceallach, which means either ‘bright-haired’ or ‘troublesome’. The name was used as a surname in many places, including Co. Meath, the Antrim/Derry area, Galway/Roscommon and Co. Laois. The greatest of these families are the O’Kellys of Ui Máine, or Hy Many, an old territory taking in east Galway and south Roscommon, also known simply as ‘O’Kelly’s Country’. They descend from Máine Mór, a fifth-century chief. A descendant was called Ceallach (died c.874) and the surname derives from him. His great-great-grandson Tadhg the Mór, who died at the battle of Clontarf in 1014, was the first to use the name in an hereditary fashion. The succession to the position of head of the sept has remained unbroken. The present head is Walter Lionel O’Kelly of Gallagh and Tycooly, known as ‘the O’Kelly’. [1]

The Anglo-Norman invasion dispersed them. The Kellys of Ulster to-day are, no doubt, mostly of the O’Kelly of Cinel Eachach sept (Counties Antrim and Derry); those of the midlands come probably from one of the O’Kelly septs of Leix who were still strong in their homeland in 1543, when they were specifically mentioned in an order relating to martial law in Queen’s Co.. The atrocious murder of Fergus O’Kelly of Leix by the Earl of Kildare later in the same century, and the subsequent transfer of O’Kelly’s estates to the Fitzgeralds makes a black page in the history of the latter family. North Connacht Kellys are more likely to be of the Templeboy (Co. Sligo) sept than of that of Ui Máine; while Dublin Kellys can either be from a north Wicklow family of the name, or migrants from any of the above septs.

The Four Masters and the other Annals are full of their exploits and obituaries. Four of them have been Bishops of Clonfert, which is the diocese comprising much of the O’Kelly country. In 1518 the O’Kellys were one of the dangerous Irish septs named by the Corporation of Galway. In the next century the O’Kellys of Co. Galway were very prominent, as indeed were those of the Pale, too, for no less than ten of the name in Counties Dublin, Kildare and Meath were attainted in 1642. The most famous was Col. Charles O’Kelly (1621-1695), who first appears in the 1641 war, was a commander under Sarsfield in 1690, and represented Co. Roscommon in the Parliament of 1689; he is best known, however, as the author of the very valuable contemporary history Excidium Macariae. [3]

MacGILLYCUDDY, Cody

This name is well known to everyone who has made a visit to Killarney or even studied a map with the idea of doing so, because the picturesque MacGillycuddy’s Reeks are the highest mountains in Ireland and are named from the Kerry sept who dwelt at their western base. This is one of the few septs whose present-day representative is officially recognized as Chief of the Name—MacGillycuddy of the Reeks. Nevertheless, the surname MacGillycuddy is not old: in fact it only dates from the sixteenth century. Previous to that they were O’Sullivans, a branch of O’Sullivan Mór, which at that comparatively late date became established as a sept distinct from the parent stem.

The surname comes from the Irish Mac Giolla Mochuda, meaning ‘son of the devotee of (St) Mochuda’. Its adoption was unusual. St. Mochuda, a pet form of Carthach, meaning ‘loving’, was the seventh-century founder of the important monastic settlement of Lismore, in Co. Waterford. He was a native of Kerry, and when his fellow Kerryman Ailinn O’Sullivan became bishop of Lismore in the thirteenth century, he initiated the practice of the O’Sullivans paying particular devotion to this saint. As a result, the practice of using Gio Ua Mochuda as a kind of title grew among a leading family of the O’Sullivans . The first to use Mac Giotia Mochuda was Conor, who is recorded as having slain Donal O’Sullivan Beare in 1563. His family was known as ‘MacGillycuddy O’Sullivan’ or ’MacGillycuddy alias O’Sullivan’ well into the seventeenth century, when MacGillycuddy became a surname in its own right. [1]

At first the name MacGillycuddy was only used by the chief’s family, the others still calling themselves O’Sullivan; for a while they were often described as O Sullivan alias MacGillycuddy, but eventually the latter was adopted by the whole branch. By the end of the sixteenth century MacGillycuddys are recorded, e.g. in the Lambeth Library maps, as principal proprietors in the baronies of Dunkerron and Magunihy.

The name is by no means numerous and is not found outside Kerry, except of course in the case of Kerry families, which have migrated to Dublin and elsewhere in recent times. [3]

QUINN, O’QUINN

Quinn is now among the twenty most common Irish surnames in the country as a whole and in first place in Co. Tyrone, though widespread in many counties. Tyrone is the place of origin of one of the five distinct septs of this name. The most notable were the Dalcassian sept of Thomond, whose territory lay around Corofin, in the barony of Inchiquin, Co. Clare; and that of Antrim, where the Quinns have long been associated with the Glens of Antrim. The O’Quinns of Co. Longford were also an important sept, being of the same stock as the O’Ferralls of Annaly. It will be noticed that the place names Inchiquin, Ballyquin etc., are spelt with only one final N. There are two in Irish—Ó Cuinn—which surname is formed from the personal name Conn. At the present time as a rule Catholic families use two Ns and Protestants one; but this practice is not invariable now, and was less so in the past. The first of the Dalcassian sept to bear the surname was Niall Ó Cuinn, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf in 1014.

The name arose separately in four areas. In three of these — near Corofin in Co. Clare, in the glens of north Antrim, and in Co. Longford - the Irish original from which the surname derives is O’ Coinn, from Conn, a personal name meaning ‘chief or ‘leader’. The most notable of these families is that based in Clare, where the barony of Inchiquin bears their name; in early times they were chiefs of the Clan Heffernan, and their descendants are today Earls of Dunraven and Mountearl. The fourth area is Tyrone, where the surname is the most common in the county. Here the descent is claimed from Coinne, a great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fifth-century monarch who founded the dynasty of the Ui Neill. In the fighting forces of the O’Neills, the O’ Coinne were traditionally quartermasters. [1]

Families of O’Quinn settled in France and became leading citizens both in Bordeaux and Pau. There is a street called Rue O’Quinn in Bordeaux, indicating the importance of the family, which is still extant in that part of France. [3]

SUGRUE, SUGHRUE, Shugrue

Anglicized form of Gaelic O’Siochfhradha ‘descendant of Siochfhradh’ , a personal name representing a Gaelicized form of an Old Norse cognate of Siegfried. Siegfried is the warrior hero of Germanic medieval epics whose story is essentially that of his Norse prototype Sigurd. From old High German: Sigu – victory (a holding or conquest in battle) and fridu – peace. The surname is rarely found outside County Kerry. [2 & 3]

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DISTRIBUTION OF OUR NAMES BY PROVINCE AND COUNTY:

One of the most striking and interesting of the phenomena to be observed in a study of our subject is the tenacity with which families have continued to dwell for centuries, down to the present day, in the very districts where their names originated. This obtains in almost every county in Ireland. Thus, according to Matheson's returns, the births registered for the distinctive Kerry names of Brick, Brosnan, Culloty, Kissane, MacElligott and MacGillycuddy, to take more or less random examples, are entirely confined to that county. [3]

		Province
Surname	Ireland Total	Leinster	Munster	Ulster	Connacht		Counties
Cahill	147	54	73	8	12		Cork, Kerry, Dublin, Kilkenny, Tipperary
Fahey*	119	6	31	3	79		Galway, Tipperary, Mayo (Galway > 50%)
Quinn	408	114	63	155	76		Dublin, Tyrone, Antrim, Roscommon, Galway**
Sughrue***	23	-	23	-	-		22 in Kerry, 1 in Cork
Clifford (82)	83	10	58	9	6		45 in Kerry

* Fahey (47), Fahy (72)

** Found in every county of Ireland from 1 in Cavan to 44 in Dublin.

*** Sugrue (21), Sughrue (2) [4]

From the high percentage of Sughrues and Cliffords located in County Kerry and that MacGillycuddy is not found outside of Kerry, it is highly likely that this is the original homeland of our family.

Sources:

[1] "The Little Book of Irish Clans," John Grenham, Chartwell Books, Inc., Secaucus, New Jersey, 1994
[2] "A Dictionary of Surnames", Patrick Hanks & Flavia Hodges, Oxford University Press, 1989.
[3] "Irish Families; Their Names, Arms, and Origins" Edward MacLysaght, 4th Ed., Irish Academic Press Ltd., Dublin, 1985.
[4] "Irish Genealogy, A Record Finder", Donal F. Begley, Dublin, 1981.

Note: Reference 3 is the most recent, thorough, and extensive study of Irish surnames. Most major libraries probably have a copy if you are interested in further searching. He also includes Coats of Arms for our surnames Boyle, Cahill, Crowley, Fahey, Kelly, MacGillycudy, and Quinn.

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