Ireland Settlement Patterns of Its Surnames

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Ireland: Settlement Patterns of its Surnames.

Edward Neafsey

August 1996

From the works of Woulfe and MacLysaght, I knew that Irish surnames are

often associated with particular localities. Many are of very long standing

and are probably as old as any surnames in the world. Yet I had not seen

distribution maps or core area definition or any data on numbers or

'market shares' in particular areas.

The idea of enumerating and mapping Irish surnames came to me when I

was working on trade area projections for new retail and leisure schemes

close to national borders. The proposed attractions would draw customers

over national and linguistic boundaries. Amongst other discriminators,

telephone numbers in the expected trade area were quite obviously a

good proxy for the neighbourhood and therefore the nationality of a

particular household.

Equally obviously, a phone code analysis could be used to enumerate and

analyse the distribution of individual surnames in Ireland. Results of the

1991 census for both the Republic and the North were coming on stream

and could provide a backdrop against which surname numbers could be

measured. Though the Republic's telephone directories were not available

on disk, as luck had it, the format of the directories meant that codes

could be scanned and put through optical character recognition. Results

could be adjusted to gross up for homes without

phones to produce numbers of total names per code area. The same could

be done for Northern Ireland. The

settlement pattern of any name could then be plotted on a map of the

whole island.



This overview has been made possible by the introduction of the personal

computer. It could not technically have been done earlier than 1989 and

probably not before 1994.

I have now enumerated and plotted the distribution of about 200

surnames in Ireland. Though there are, according to MacLysaght, 4,000

Irish surnames, the 200 so far analysed account for a quarter of all the 1.5

million households in Ireland. I am getting insights from the maps that are

new to me and maybe are new to other people. This article sets out some

of the findings.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect to a casual onlooker is the fact that

surnames are not evenly distributed through the country. Even names

such as Smith and Clark are regional. Some Irish names go back 900 or

1,000 years. Why then have they not permeated throughout the entire

country? How many generations have we had since surnames were

adopted? How many does it take to get a dispersal?

If we go back far enough, lineage and nationality merge. The 5000 year

story of Céide Fields in Co. Mayo can be used to provide a perspective. We

are told that the 5000 years that have elapsed since Céide walls were

built and that this means 200 generations of people. A hundred years

therefore means four generations and 900 years means 36 generations.

Is 36 generations a lot? A botanist might say that the number of human

generations to a century is small compared to many species of animals

and plants and that 36 generations is not been much time for dispersal.

The dispersal we see may be as much as we could reasonably have

expected.

Against this is the fact that human populations in historic times havehardly ever been in equilibrium. They have, with occasional setbacks,



grown. The surname that I have entered recorded history in the eleventh

century, along with many other Irish surnames. That is also when the

Normans brought their surnames out of Normandy. A hundred ago - four

generations ago - there were eight people who came together to become

my great-grandparents. A hundred before them there were 64 who weretheir great-grandparents. Continue back through the nine hundred years

to the eleventh and I have 134 million ancestors! So has everybody else.

Yet in the eleventh century Ireland had only 400,000 people, and the

British Isles as a whole had only 2.5 million. Bring in Normandy, and even

Scandinavia for the Vikings and there would still be under five million. So,

if we could track them all, within a small number of generations,

everybody would find the same ancestors on both sides of their family

tree and that they are related to everybody else in the same

neighbourhood. Looked at in this way, we are all related.

When I have mapped a name, I write a commentary, usually of about 300

words, covering its meaning and facts and figures about it. The names

have ranged in numbers from 16,000 plus households called Murphy to 20

called Cantrell. There have been enquiries about names even rarer than

this.

The effect of the Famine has been to diminish rural population numbersdrastically, though not everywhere equally drastically. Even so, the

distribution patterns of the individual surnames of Ireland remain distinct

and in many cases tightly clustered. The urban centres of Dublin and

Belfast have grown in population. This is the result of industrialisation and

also because these centres were internal destinations for migrants. They

are comparable with overseas destinations for migrants insofar as

surnames from many or all parts of Ireland may be found in them.

What I should like to do in this article is to select examples of different

types to see how they vary in their settlement patterns. These include a

'single ancestor' surname; a trade name; a gallowglass; an Anglo-Norman;

and a surname based on a saint's name.

Gallagher families are said to be descended from a single ancestor.

Gallagher means 'foreign help' but is nevertheless amongst the oldest

Irish surnames. Taking the Gallagher settlement pattern as an example of the clustering of Irish surnames, this cluster has abrupt boundaries and



the question arises as to why this should be so. (Ten dots on the map

represent 1%of the families.) The surname accounts for about 5% of the

total number of households in Co. Donegal. If everyone is related and

surnames are up to 900 years old, why are Gallagher names not dispersed

evenly throughout the country by now?

Whilst 5% is a high proportion, each generation would be able to find

marriage partners amongst the other 95% without much need for

dispersal. Further, some even of Gallagher neighbours would be

'unrelated'. Everyone had to marry outwith the bounds of consanguinity

which no doubt would mean some outward movement on the margins of

the cluster. But bonds of kinship, familiarity and culture must have caused

an 'undertow' to bring outlying names back into the cluster again, rather

than continue with the dispersal.

My own surname, in its English guise of Bonner, is even more closely

identifiable with Donegal than Gallagher. Logan, a much more recent

introduction to the country (from Scotland to Antrim) is much more

concentrated in one county than either Gallagher or Bonner.

Gallagher: 5,000 families.



The boundaries of Donegal are apparent in Gallagher. Watersheds often form natural

impediments to movement and watercourses sometimes do. At the opposite end of the

country, the catchment area of the Barrow and Nore river system, whose watersheds often

coincide with county boundaries, seems to have contained the Delaneys, and the 800 strong

Bergin families. Much the same applies to the 9,700 strong Ryan name in the Golden Vale of

Tipperary. A curiosity of Delaney is that the meaning of the name seems to put the origin of

its families, if anywhere, in the adjacent river system of the Slaney. (Greater Dublin today

stands out with these as with many names, to rival or exceed the historic area of origin of the

name.)

Delaney: 2,000 families.

By contrast, some names are more widespread. In such cases, typically

there has been more than one location of origin. Kelly is not location

specific. This may be because its root meaning (of strife, war) could applyto participants in events anywhere in the country. Kelly is the most evenly

distributed name in the country.

Kelly is a name of a type which is presumably old. It recalls characteristics

or virtues of an era that may be called pagan or heroic.

There are many names of this type. Some, like Kelly, have meaningswhich are not location specific. O'Sullivan is 'bright eyed' (probably);



O'Connor and O'Neill mean champions. Some are location specific, if only

in a general way. Murphy is 'sea warrior'; McNamara is 'son of the hound

of the sea'; (the dog had qualities to be admired, like the bear, wolf, fox

and raven. The word for dog appears in the name of the Ulster hero Cú

Chulainn).

Kelly: 14,500 families.

Many of the names are just physical descriptions. What is striking about

names of this type, location specific or not, is their strength in the

southern half of the country and the large numbers of families that have

the names. Whilst it may be said that O'Connor is western and O'Neill

northern, the statistics confirm the importance of the south. O'Neill is

twice as numerous relative to the rest of the population in Carlow as it is

in Tyrone or Derry. An O'Connor sept of Ulster is now extinct. So names of this type tend to be southern and big.



McDonald: 2,300 families

Perhaps reflecting the mixed Scots-Viking ancestry of the clan, McDonalds

are found all down the east coast, an area settled by Scandinavians and

having several Scandinavian placenames.

The Anglo-Norman settlement of the country brought more surnames to

Ireland, most easily recognisable being those with the Fitz prefix. The

most numerous surname from this settlement though was not originally a

surname. It was Walsh. This is the old English singular of Welsh, being the

name of unrelated Welsh retainers of the Anglo-Norman lords. Ireland now

has 12,600 Walsh families, the third most numerous after Murphy and

Kelly. The Walsh settlement highlights an area within which the patterns of

Anglo-Norman names proper typically fit. About 2% of the families of the

south coast counties have this name. Despite the early Anglo-Norman

presence in Carrickfergus, these names are proportionately not well

represented in the North.



Walsh: 11,000 families.

We might expect Smith to be a widespread name - one in every village,

but it is not so. In part its presence in Ireland is due to British settlement

in Ulster, but in part it is a translation of the Gaelic McGowan. Historically

McGowan was associated with north Leinster. Smith now is found not somuch in a cluster, but in the whole country north of a line from Dublin to

Donegal. The map shows a composite picture of former McGowans

together with Smiths and Smyths from Britain.

Other names to do with trades or professions similarly are weak in the

south. Clarke, with a self evident meaning, and McAteer/McIntyre,

meaning carpenter or mason, tend to be within the area covered by

Smith.



Smith, Smyth, McGowan: 11,000 families.

Moore like Smith, has origins in Ulster Gaels, and in Scottish and English

migrants. It is also the modern spelling of a Norman name and so is found

in the south. It is widespread, the result not so much of dispersal, but of

multiple origins.

What seems to be an overall pattern is that the south of the island is

strong on names from the heroic era, when virtues such as those in the

meanings of Kelly or Murphy were the admired qualities. The northern half

of the country has these names too, but examples there do not have the

numerical strength of the south. Apart from the trade names, the north

has surnames based on saints' names or on religion in other forms. This

became apparent to me when I plotted McBride. This is from St Brigid,

whose cult was in mid-Leinster. The families turn out to be concentrated

much further to the north.



McBride: 1,700 families.

The North is where one finds Thompson, McComb and Holmes (from

Thomas); McMillan/McMullen (son of the tonsured one). It is also the

location of Mac names based on saints' names, whether scriptural orvernacular saints; and saints' names prefixed by 'Mul', devotee of, or 'Gil',

servant of.

Another observation to be made from the overview provided by plotting

surnames is the use of the prefixes 'O' and 'Mac' in Irish names. The

impressions one gets from MacLysaght is that British rule was

unsympathetic and so these prefixes were dropped, and that restoration

has occurred since British rule has ceased.

There obviously is a dynamic to be measured in the restoration,

particularly of the 'O'. Gorman is an interesting example. The name was

originally McGorman. The prefix fell into disuse. A celebrity with the name

erroneously assumed an 'O' and others followed suit. MacLysaght, often

working with data of a century ago, found that O'Gorman was found

chiefly in Clare, whilst Tipperary was plain Gorman. The distribution I find

today, which cannot be illustrated on a black and white map, is that Tipperary today is also O'Gorman country. The 'O' form is evidently



spreading from the south west. The present position is that 55% of the

families are O'Gorman, 43% are Gorman, and only 2% are McGorman.

The immense extent of the range of use of the 'O' prefix must cast doubton the influence the British had on this cultural feature. Generally

speaking, for an individual name, there are more families with the prefix

in the urban areas and the south. But the proportions vary from one name

to another, even in the same regions.

The extremes are Munster names. At one end of the range, 99% of Shea

families have the 'O' prefix. The Murphys, also in Munster, do not have it

at all, with the possible exception of people who write their name in

Gaelic. With Sullivan, 89% have the prefix.

In Leinster, 15% of Farrells have the prefix, whilst with their near

neighbours the Reillys, 62% do.

In Ulster, restoration of the 'O' prefix tends to be from west to east. Some

41% of the 3,000 strong Kane families have the prefix. Those with it are

mainly in the west. A paradox arises here when comparison is made withthe 3,400 Keane families, the spelling variant predominant in the other

three provinces. These families are further south, yet hardly any of them

has the prefix.

Whilst it is not a reintroduction, another paradox arises when comparison

is made with an example of the use of the 'Mac' prefix in Ulster. McCartan

remains solidly with its prefix in the south east, whereas Carton, Cartin

Carten and Cartan are the forms found in the north east and along thenorth coast of Northern Ireland.

This article set out with the intent of providing explanations of surname

distributions. It would however be misleading to leave the impression that

all distributions may be easily explained. O'Donovan is one of the purely

descriptive names from the Old Gaelic or heroic era. It is derived from two

Gaelic words: 'donn', brown, and 'dubh', black. The place of clan origin is

Co. Limerick, whence the O'Donovans were forced to migrate to southwest Co. Cork after the arrival of the Anglo-Normans.



O'Donovan: 3,100 families

Donovan families are amongst those who have made a significant

restoration of the prefix. Referring to 1890s' data, MacLysaght put the

proportion of families with the prefix at only 2%. A century later, it is 77%.

Like many families, the O'Donovans are tightly clustered. In this case as in

many others, the reasons for the particular pattern are not clear from

either meaning or topography. The same pattern however is evident in the

Murphy distribution, though it is more fuzzy.

These then are the impressions I have gained from mapping Irish

surnames. Of necessity the treatment has to be inadequate. Each new

name mapped may change the context for some of the others. Space for

200 maps cannot be provided and even if it could, there remain many

more surname populations still to be mapped. Some may be mapped

more completely. There may be interest to be gained from mapping all

McDonald variants together insofar as that may be possible. Even alone,

McDonald shows that families of settlers from the Western Isles are as

dispersed as those from South Wales.



It seems that some old names are tightly clustered, as are some new

ones, like Logan. Chronologically between the old and the new, some

names may be widely dispersed, like Walsh and McDonald. It seems also

that as one moves north, surnames have a finer grain and a greater range

of types of origin, even excluding names brought from Scotland andEngland.

In that many names turn out to be variants of other names, the subject

matter is more complex than it seems at first sight, but it does now lend

itself to quantification and analysis. We are fortunate with Ireland to have

the data and to have it in a form that may be broken down into small

areas, which is not so everywhere. Further, as time goes by, it will no

doubt be possible to map surname distributions from the Griffith Valuation

and so to make comparisons of movements between the mid 19th century

and today, for any name.

The Irish Genealogical Foundation published my ‘Surnames of Ireland’ in 2002. It covers 200 surnames.

Ireland Settlement Patterns of Its Surnames

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