We have also for the same interpretation the authority of the annalist Tigernach, who, in his Annals of Ireland at the year 714, translates Ui Eachach (now Iveagh, in the county Down), nepotes Eochaidh.
On this subject it may not be uninteresting to the reader to hear the opinion of the learned Roderic O’Flaherty. Treating of the Hy Cormaic, a tribe located near Lough Foyle, in the present county of Londonderry, he says—
“Hy or I (which calls for an explanation) is the plural number from Hua or O, a grandson, and is frequently prefixed to the names of progenitors of families, as well to particularize the families as the lands they possess, as Dal, Siol, Clann, Kinel, Mac, Muintir, Teallach, or any such name, pursuant to the adoptive power of custom.”—Ogygia, Part III. Chap. 76.
Besides the words above enumerated, after which the names of progenitors are placed, there are others to be met with after which the names of territories are placed, as Aes, people; Fir or Feara, men; Aicme, tribe; and Pobul, people; as Aes Greine, i.e., the people of Grian, a tribe located in the present county of Limerick; Aes tri Magh, the people of the three plains, in the same county; Feara Muighe Feine, the men of Moy Feine, now Fermoy, in the county of Cork; Fir Rois, the men of Ross, the name of a tribe in the present county of Monaghan; Feara Arda, i.e., the men of Ard, a tribe in the present county of Louth; Pobul Droma, in Tipperary.
Many other names were formed by a mode not unlike the Latin and Greek method, that is, by adding certain terminations to the name or cognomen of the ancestors of the tribes. These terminations are generally raighe, aighe, ne, and acht, as Caenraighe, Muscraighe, Dartraighe, Calraighe, Ciarraighe, Tradraighe, Greagraighe, Ernaidhe, Mairtine, Conmaicne, Olnegmacht, Connacht, Cianacht, Eoghanacht, &c. &c. This is the usual form of the tribe names among the descendants of the Belgic families enumerated in the Books of Lecan and Glendalough, as existing in Ireland in the first century, and it is not improbable that the tribe names given on Ptolemy’s Map of Ireland are partly fanciful translations, and partly modifications of them.
It appears from the authentic Irish annals, and the whole tenor of Irish history, that the Irish people were distinguished by tribe names only up to the period of the monarch Brian Boru, who published an edict that the descendants of the heads of tribes and families then in power should take name from them, either from the fathers or grandfathers, and that these names should become hereditary and remain fixed for ever. To this period we must refer the origin of family names or surnames.
Previously to this reign the Irish people were divided into various great tribes commanded by powerful chieftains, usually called kings, and these great tribes were further sub-divided into several minor ones, each commanded by a petty chieftain, but who was subject to the control of the Righ, or head of the great tribe. Thus, in Thomond the name of the great tribe was Dal Cais, from Cormac Cas, the progenitor of the regal family, and of all the sub-tribes into which this great race was divided. Immediately before the establishment of surnames, Brian Boru, whose descendants took the name of O’Brien, was the leader and supposed senior representative of this great race; but there were various other tribes under him, known by various appellations, as the Hy-Caisin otherwise clann Cuileain, who after the reign of Brian took the name of Mac Namara; the Kinel-Fearmaic, who took the name of O’Dea; Muintir Iffernain, who took the name of O’Quin; the Kinel Donghaile, who took the name of O’Grady; the Sliocht Dunchuain, who took the name of O’Kennedy; the Hy-Ronghaile, who took the name of O’Shanaghan; the Hy-Kearney, who took the name of O’Ahern, &c.
The chiefs of these tribes had generally the names of their fathers postfixed to their own, and sometimes, but not often, those of their grandfathers; but previous to the reign of Brian in the tenth century, these appellations changed in every generation.
The next article shall treat of surnames.
[1] Original in possession of Messrs Hodges and Smith, College Green, Dublin.