On researching my Irish patronyms

 
This blogpost evolved in response to some comments on a Facebook West Cork Genealogy site. One woman insisted that the variations in patronym spelling, was because everyone was illiterate and only went to school a few days of their lives, because they had to work on the farm—back in the day. Another poster assumed the clerks were just too lazy to add those pesky apostrophes. Not necessarily so.

So, in answering the unasked questions, I discovered I had the makings of a blogpost. I never know where my next bit of writing will come from. I took on the second poster first: The apostrophe was not part of the patronym until recently, so when you see O Sullivan (with no apostrophe), it's an earlier Anglicised Irish spelling. It comes from: Ó Súilleabháin (from Uí Shúilleabháin, from Uí Súilleabán.) O was not in fashion during the turn of the century. See also: Sullivan, O'Sullivan, O Sullivan, Soolivan.

 In the Irish language the word Ó (originally ua, then "Ua") signifies 'descendant of' or 'grandson' and is found in many Irish surnames. It has been anglicised as O'. When placed before the genitive form of Súileabhán, which is Súileabháin, it can be translated as grandson of. While the use of an apostrophe is a common convention in English, the apostrophe is never used in the original Irish language version of the name. —Wiki

Some of those perceived misspellings are directly from the Irish spelling of a name which genetivizes, or changes, the spelling. For example, the feminine spelling of Uí Shúilleabháin, the Uí changes the S to Sh-, and the Sh- renders the S silent, and the genitive ending becomes -áin. 

Mac and Ó, or Ua have slightly different grammatical rules than the feminine Níc, and Ní. And if there's no prefix, the second name still changes spelling too—especially when there are two vowels in a row: Brian Ó Brian becomes O'Brien, Niall Ó Naill, becomes Ó Néill, or Ua Néill. One noun modifies the other in order to show ownership. Possessor and possessed. In English we use 's (and we clearly don't understand how to use 's in English).

H is a modern mark of aspiration, H is not a letter in the Irish alphabet: nor are j k q v w x y z). No apostrophe was ever used on Irish Medieval names. Period. Or those Haiches either! My granny said H was a ladder to the sky.

People paid no attention to how names were spelled. It had nothing to do with illiteracy. Even Shakespeare spelled his name several ways. There's a tombstone in Ireland with the surname for one family spelled as McEneaney, McAneany, McAneny, McEnaney, McEneany, and a mistranslation, Bird! Even though the model was clearly at hand, it was still spelled differently each time. Just because.

How did these Anglicized names come to be? A 14th c. law required the landed Norman English gentry who were busily becoming "more Irish than the Irish themselves," to have an English sounding name. So, it became fashionable for the Irish to drop the O or the Mac prefix of their names as well (for political reasons). Nothing to do with laziness.

In the 1600s, the prefixes O and Mac were largely dropped because it was impossible to find work if one had an Irish name. In the 1800s, many Irish families re-adopted the O and Mac prefixes. Sometimes the wrong ones. Or none at all. Like Guinness. But that G is a fossilized Mac, or Mag. It was MagAonghusa.... There is no difference between Mag, Mac and Mc. And Mc is merely a contraction. Sometimes Mc was underlined to show the contraction. Ó and Ua are synonymous. And the prefix for women is Níc, for Mhic, and Ní, for Uí, or Ó. Ní derives from Iníon Uí

I have Sullivans and O Sullivans in Bantry, and am related to both, but they are from different families. It can be so confusing! Especially when they married each other... I once "fixed" my Ancestry.com tree, only to find that the two branches were unrelated Sullivans (well, unrelated enough to get married...)

To make matters worse, my granny's uncle, Daniel Sullivan (who came from a family of 8) from Gortnascreena (Gort-na-Screena) farm, had 12 children, who had as many children.... One Sullivan married an O Sullivan. And, not knowing any better, I merged the two lines. Yiiii!

But when searching genealogical records, typing in OSullivan as one word, no apostrophe, no space, is a great clue.

As to that first woman who commented the Irish were unschooled, and therefore, illiterate, for the record, nothing could be further from the truth. "The rate of illiteracy in Ireland was 8.3% in 1911." and the "Irish literacy rates on the eve of the First World War were among the highest in Europe." Shakespeare often spelled words many different ways, one would not describe him as illiterate...

It took Dr. Samuel Johnson eight years to compile a dictionary in 1755, in order to codify the spelling of words. But not everyone agreed. In 1908, the Simplified Spelling Society was formed; George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) left a large bequest to revamp English spelling.

This astounding literacy fluency in Ireland was partially due to the rise of the hedgerow schools (scoil chois claí) from the 16th c. to the end of the 19th c., where, in addition to Irish, both Latin and Greek were also taught. Under the Penal laws (1723 to 1782), Catholic schools were forbidden, there was a resurgence of hedge schools—especially for the impoverished Irish Catholics who could not attend the Anglican schools.

William Makepeace Thackeray's Irish Sketch Books contain various references to hedge schools. William Carleton, who got his own early education in hedge schools, wrote many comedic accounts of them for the English audience, including The Hedge School. Brian Friel's play Translations is set in a hedge school, and its subject is the defence of Irish culture against a dominant and aggressive colonisation.—Wiki

My name, Maureen, is sometimes spelled Maírín, Moreen, or Mórín,. Ya don't even wanna know the variations of my last name. But Hurley (Ó hUirthile), a conglomerate of several unrelated Irish names, including O'Herlihy ( Ó hIarlatha), also morphed into Murley ("O'Muirthile") through mistransliteration. Ó hUirthile is from the Dál gCais tribal group, in Clare and North Tipperary; but my Hurley family is from Co. Cork.

My cousins in Tralee picked up an E on the end of their name in the 1890s, so their name is now Walshe, while the rest of my family in Bantry, is Walsh. Who added the E? Not my family. Not my great-uncle Frank. Probably the end result of a clerk's hurried flourish. 

My great uncle Frank was not illiterate by any means. He signed his name Walsh in letters to my grandmother, his sister, but his children continue to use the Walshe spelling. And my second cousins have no clue as to why they spell their last name differently than their cousins. I was the one to break the news to them. 

Now it's codified. Set in stone, chiseled on Great-uncle Frank, and Bridie's tombstones is the name Walshe. The misspelling was probably due to the fault of a parish priest in a hurry, in this case, or a scribal error. Or just bad handwriting.

I have a copy of my grandmother's baptismal record, with her name misspelled, and even her birthdate is wrong on her birth certificate, because a clerk couldn't read a scribe's archaic handwriting. It happens. 

Needless to say, I couldn't use the documents to apply for Irish citizenship because I couldn't prove my Irish identity due to scribal errors. According to those typo, I didn't exist. Poof! Gone, just like that. I tried several times to get my passport but I could never get past the paperwork.

One of my favorite ethnic names gone awry stories, was when my Irish teacher, Joe Nugent from Mullingar, was returning to California to teach, US Customs wouldn't let him in, because his first name, Seosamh, was spelled in Irish on his Irish passport. (There's no J in Irish.) A good thing he didn't use the original de Nogents for Nugent.

I am planning on applying for an Irish passport. And now, most of the documents are digitalized, or online. So those misspellings on my granny's papers are no longer an issue. It looks like I have a choice of two last names: Maírín Ní hUirthile, or Uí hIarlatha. Here's hoping they spell it right. Foggedabout pronouncing it right. If I were to marry my partner I would become Maírín Bean Uí Néill. Easier to pronounce, but I think I'll pass on that one.

Hurley: Sea Tide
Lúghnasa
My Name
SILENT HAICHES 
DEEP NOVEMBER 
WHO BUT I

Looking for the story behind your Irish name? | IrishCentral.com