Irish surnames starting with C

The C names in brief

• Cafferty · Mac Eachmharcaigh · Gaelic sept
  Son of Eachmharcach, 'horse-rider'. A Donegal surname, Woulfe writes, also common in Mayo, but often disguised as MacCaffry. Eachmharcach was a personal name among the O'Dohertys, and he thought the family probably a branch of them.
• Cagney · Ó Caingne · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Caingne — from caingean, 'a legal dispute'; an advocate's name. A branch of the Corca Laoighdhe, originally seated in the parish of Myross in the barony of West Carbery, County Cork. James Cagney's people came from the county.
• Cahill · Ó Cathail · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cathal — cath, 'battle', with either 'rule' or 'great'. Cathal is battle-powerful, and Woulfe counts five separate families of the name, all of them well established by the close of the 16th century: Ó Cathail of Cinel Aodha in south-west Galway, of the same stock as the O'Shaughnessys; another in Crumthann in the east of that county; the Corca Thine family in Tipperary, who gave their name to Ballycahill; the Ó Cathail of Loch Lein, lords of that Eoghanacht country in Kerry before the O'Donoghues; and a fifth near Corofin in Clare. Five unrelated families, one spelling — which is the ordinary condition of an Irish surname rather than the exception.
• Callan · Ó Cathaláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cathalán, 'little battle-mighty one'. In Monaghan and Louth, Woulfe says, Callan represents Ó Cathaláin, descendant of Cathalán, battle-mighty; other families of the name were chiefs in Roscommon and in Owneybeg in Limerick, where the O'Mulryans dispossessed them. Fr Nicholas Callan of Darver, County Louth, professor at Maynooth, invented the induction coil.
• Campbell · Mac Cathmhaoil (adopted) · Scottish (gallowglass & planter)
  Cam beul, 'crooked mouth'. Most Campbells in Ireland are of Scottish descent. But in Ulster the name can also be a disguise for the Irish Mac Cathmhaoil, son of Cathmhaol, battle-chief, which Woulfe lists among its English forms along with MacCawell, MacCall, Caulfield and others.
• Canavan · Ó Ceanndubháin · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Ceanndubhán, 'the dark-headed one'. Hereditary physicians to Muinntear Murchadha, the clan of which the O'Flahertys were chiefs — one of Ireland's medical families, whose learning passed from father to son for centuries. Woulfe records the name in Cork as well.
• Cannon · Mac Canann · Gaelic sept
  Son of Cana, 'a whelp' or wolf cub. A Tír Chonaill name from the Donegal coast, from Cano or Cana — a whelp, or a wolf. Woulfe calls it rare and scattered, and adds the detail that matters to anyone tracing it: the name is now very often disguised as MacCann, which is a different surname entirely.
• Cantwell · Cantual · Norman
  From Kentwell, Suffolk. Norman: of Cantwell, or Kentwell, somewhere in England. The family came with the invasion and settled in Kilkenny and Tipperary, with large grants from the Butlers; their first seat was Cantwell's Court, about four miles north-east of Kilkenny.
• Canty · Ó an Cháinte · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of the satirist, from cáinteach. A bardic family in West Cork. Fearfeasa Ó an Cháinte was a celebrated poet of the early 17th century who took part in the Contention of the Bards.
• Carew · de Carrún · Norman-Welsh
  From Carew in Pembrokeshire — a place name, 'the fort by the ford'. A Cambro-Norman family of the first invasion, kin to the Fitzgeralds. Sir George Carew, President of Munster after Kinsale, made the name feared; it has also been used to anglicise the Gaelic Ó Corráin.
• Carey · Ó Ciardha / Ó Cearaigh · Gaelic septs (several)
  Descendant of Ciardha, 'the dark one' — among several distinct roots. One spelling covering many origins: at least nine separate Irish patronymics were anglicised as Carey, alongside unrelated English, Welsh and French families of the same name.
• Carmody · Ó Cearmada · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cearmaid — a very ancient personal name. An old and still well-known Thomond surname, in Woulfe's words.
• Carolan · Ó Cearbhalláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cearbhallán, 'little Cearbhall'. A well-known Ulster surname, Woulfe writes, formerly common in Donegal, Tyrone, Monaghan and Cavan, and in Meath; probably several distinct families. Turlough O'Carolan (1670–1738), the blind harper and composer, was born at Nobber in Meath.
• Carroll · Ó Cearbhaill · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cearbhall, 'fierce in battle'. Cearbhall was a very common Irish personal name, and Woulfe lists six O'Carroll families. The best known are the O'Carrolls of Éile, descended from Cearbhall, lord of Éile, who fought at Clontarf; their country covered Clonlisk and Ballybritt in Offaly and Ikerrin and Eliogarty in Tipperary, but after the Normans only Ely O'Carroll remained to them, ruled from Birr.
• Carty · Ó Cárthaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cárthach, 'loving'. Woulfe records families of the name in Tipperary, Clare and Roscommon, the last of which spread into Longford, Sligo and Donegal — and three Cartys as chief poets of Connacht in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. A separate name from the Munster MacCarthys, though emigrants often assumed otherwise and added the Mac back on in America.
• Casey · Ó Cathasaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cathasach, 'vigilant in war'. Cathasach means vigilant or watchful, and Woulfe lists six families of the name, all still well represented in his day: lords of Saithne in north County Dublin until Hugh de Lacy dispossessed them after the Norman invasion; a Dál gCais family in Coshlea, Limerick; a Cork family near Mitchelstown; erenaghs of Kilarduff in Tirawley, Mayo; erenaghs of Cloondara in Roscommon; and erenaghs of Devenish in Fermanagh.
• Cassidy · Ó Caiside · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Caiside, 'curly-haired'. Ó Caiside, descendant of Caiside: a distinguished medical family of Fermanagh, hereditary physicians to the Maguires for three centuries. Woulfe records the spellings O Cashedy, O Cassidy and O Kesedy in the old rolls, and branches of the family settled in the midland counties before the end of the 16th century.
• Clancy · Mac Fhlannchaidh · Gaelic learned family
  Son of Flannchadh, 'the red warrior'. Two families of the name, and both held office rather than land. The Clare family were hereditary brehons, judges under the Irish law, to the O'Briens of Thomond, which made them keepers and interpreters of a legal system older than the English one that replaced it.
• Clarke · Ó Cléirigh · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of the cleric — possibly Europe's oldest surname (916 AD). In Ireland Clarke is usually a translation. Woulfe gives Mac an Chléirigh, son of the clerk, as a common Cavan surname, probably a variant of Ó Cléirigh, and says it is now nearly always translated Clarke.
• Clifford · Ó Clúmháin · Gaelic learned family & Norman
  Descendant of Clúmhán, from clúmhach, ‘hairy’; or Norman ‘de Clifford’, of Clifford in Herefordshire. Clifford is old in Ireland as a Norman name, de Clifford, taken from a parish in Herefordshire. Woulfe says, though, that the vast majority of Irish Cliffords are of Irish origin.
• Clohessy · Ó Clochasaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Clochasach. An old Thomond surname, Woulfe writes, still well known in Clare and Limerick. In the 16th and early 17th centuries the O'Cloghessys owned the townland of Ballynaglearach, in the parish of O'Gonnelloe, Co.
• Cody · Mac Óda · Norman
  Son of Odo. Mac Óda, son of Odo or Otho, a Germanic personal name brought by the Normans. Woulfe explains it as a patronymic surname taken by the Kilkenny family of Archdeacon, and Coady is another spelling.
• Coffey · Ó Cobhthaigh · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Cobhthach, 'victorious'. A brehon and poetic family of Westmeath, chief ollamhs of Uisneach — the hill at the mythic centre of Ireland, where a townland is still called Toorcoffey, Coffey's tower.
• Coleman · Ó Colmáin / Ó Clumháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Colmán, 'little dove' — from Latin columba. A family of the Uí Fiachrach seated at Grangemore in the parish of Templeboy, County Sligo. By the sixteenth century the name was commonest in Cork, Tipperary and Waterford.
• Colgan · Ó Colgáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Colga — from colg, 'sword' or 'thorn'. An old Offaly family of the same stock as the O'Connors, O'Dempseys and O'Dunnes, and common in Thomond as Culligan and Quilligan. John Colgan, the seventeenth-century Franciscan at Louvain, saved much of what we know of the Irish saints.
• Collins · Ó Coileáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Coileán, 'young hound / whelp'. Coileán means whelp. The Ó Coileáin were a family of the Uí Fidhgheinte, of the same stock as the O'Donovans, and were lords of Uí Conaill Gabhra, now the baronies of Upper and Lower Connello in Limerick.
• Comerford · Comartún · Norman
  From Comberford, Staffordshire. Norman or English, from Comberton in Cambridgeshire, or perhaps Comberford in Staffordshire; the Irish form, Comartún, points Woulfe to the first. The Comerfords are an old family of Kilkenny and Waterford, and the head of the family was Baron of Danganmore.
• Comiskey · Mac Cumascaigh · Gaelic sept
  Son of Cumascach, 'the confuser' or 'mixer'. A Monaghan family with a seat in the county, whose pedigree was traced to Fiacha Suidhe, a brother of Conn of the Hundred Battles.
• Concannon · Ó Concheanainn · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cú Cheanainn, 'fair-headed hound'. A chiefly family of Uí Maine, seated at Kiltullagh in east Galway — one of the names that has barely moved in eight hundred years.
• Condon · Condún · Norman
  De Caunteton — from Welsh Marches. Norman de Caunteton, probably from Canton in Glamorgan, worn down in Irish to Conndún and in English to Condon. The Condons were a well-known family in Cork, Waterford and Limerick, with great property around Mitchelstown — a town, Woulfe says, named after one of them — and the barony of Condons and Clangibbon keeps their name.
• Conlan · Ó Conalláin / Ó Caoindealbháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Conallán — a diminutive of Conall. The O'Connellans were chiefs of Crioch Tullach in Tyrone, and a separate line, the Ó Caoindealbháin, were princes of Uí Laeghaire in Meath before the Normans came. Woulfe files the name as a Roscommon one, found in all four provinces by the sixteenth century.
• Conneely · Mac Conghaile / Ó Conghaile · Gaelic sept
  Son of Conghal — 'hound' and 'valour'. An old surname of West Connacht, still common in Galway and Mayo, and the source of the village name Ballyconneely. Local legend held that the Conneelys were descended from seals, and that the family would not eat them.
• Connery · Ó Conaire · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Conaire, 'keeper of the hound'. Conaire is an ancient Irish personal name, probably meaning dog-keeper, and Ó Conaire is an old Munster surname common throughout the province, recorded as O Connery and O Conrey and anglicised Connery, Conry and sometimes Conroy. Woulfe distinguishes it from Ó Conraoi, a separate name that ends up spelled the same way.
• Connolly · Ó Conghalaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Conghalach, 'valiant as a hound'. Conghalach means valorous, and Woulfe finds four separate families behind the one surname: southern Uí Néill in East Meath, dispossessed soon after the Anglo-Norman invasion, who settled with the MacMahons in Monaghan and became very numerous there; a Dalcassian family in Thomond said to descend from Mahon, brother of Brian Boru; a branch of the Uí Maine in Galway, of the same stock as the O'Maddens; and a Roscommon family. He warns that the English spellings cannot always be told apart from those of Ó Conghaile and Mac Conghaile, so a Connolly may belong to any of them.
• Conroy · Ó Maolchonaire · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Maolchonaire, 'follower of Conaire'. Conroy, in this sense, is the disguise of a great learned family: the O'Mulconrys, poets and chroniclers to the kings of Connacht, with land at Clonahee near Strokestown in Roscommon held in right of their profession. A branch settled at Ardkyle in the parish of Feenagh in Clare.
• Considine · Mac Consaidín · Gaelic sept
  Son of Constantine. Son of Constantine — a Roman emperor's name, taken up in Ireland as a Christian flourish and worn by a Gaelic family who were anything but Roman. Woulfe makes them a branch of the O'Briens in Clare, descended from Domhnall Mór Ó Briain, King of Munster, who died in 1194.
• Conway · Ó Connmhaigh · Gaelic learned family
  Descendant of Connmhach. A Dalcassian family who were formerly ollaves of music in Thomond, Woulfe writes. At the end of the 16th century the name was common across Munster and south Leinster, and was also found in Roscommon and Cavan.
• Coogan · Ó Cuagáin / Mac Cogadháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cuagán (Kilkenny line); or son of Cogadhán, from Cú Chogaidh, 'war-hound' (Leitrim line). A Kilkenny name: Woulfe traces the Ó Cuagáin from the Uí Maine of Galway, spreading into Offaly, Kildare and Kilkenny by the late 16th century; a separate Mac Cogadháin family were chiefs of Glanfarne in Leitrim.
• Cooney · Ó Cuana · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cuana. Cuana means handsome, or elegant. Woulfe, following the medieval genealogist O'Dugan, makes the Ó Cuana chiefs of Clann Fergus in Ulster; the name is first recorded in Tyrone in the twelfth century, and by the end of the 16th century was most common in Sligo and Cork.
• Corbett · Corbaid · Norman & Gaelic
  'son of Corbet' — from French corbeau, a raven. Woulfe gives Corbett two sources. A family of Norman origin, named from Corbet, a little raven, settled in Meath and Offaly, but he says the Norman name was always very rare and that nearly all Irish Corbetts are of Irish origin, their names (Ó Corbáin, Ó Coirbín, Ó Conbágha) having been anglicised to the same form.
• Corcoran · Ó Corcráin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Corcrán, 'purple-faced'. Corcrán is from corcair, purple. Woulfe describes Ó Corcráin as an ecclesiastical, literary and bardic family found in many parts of Ireland; by the end of the 16th century it was in every province and in almost every southern county.
• Cormack · Ó Cormaic · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cormac — 'son of Corb', or charioteer. Not one family but several. Woulfe traces Ó Cormaic to a branch of the Oirghialla who held the barony of Tirkeeran in County Derry until the O'Kanes dispossessed them, and to a branch of the Corca Laoighdhe in south-west Cork, where the name was common in the 16th century.
• Corrigan · Ó Corragáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Corragán. A Fermanagh name connected with the Maguires, common in the county's seventeenth-century records and widespread across Ireland since.
• Costello · Mac Oisdealbhaigh · Norman-Gaelic
  Son of Oisdealbh — the first Norman family to take a 'Mac'. Mac Oisdealbh, son of Oisdealbh: a patronymic surname taken by the Norman family of Nangle, and, Woulfe says, the earliest Anglo-Irish Mac surname recorded in the annals, at 1193. The barony of Costello in Mayo is named after them.
• Cotter · Mac Coitir · Gaelic-Norse
  Son of Oitir — the Norse Ottar. An old and respectable family, doubtless of Norse origin, seated at Carrigtwohill near Cork city, Woulfe writes; also an Ulster surname. The c of Mac drifted over to the second part of the name, giving Mac Coitir and Cotter.
• Coughlan · Ó Cochláin / Mac Cochláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant or son of Cochlán — from cochall, 'cloak' or 'hood'. Cochlán is a pet form of cochal, a cape or hood. Two families carry the name: the Ó Cochláin, an ancient and still common surname of County Cork around Barryroe, and the Mac Cochláin lords of Delvin Eathra in Offaly, whose castles guarded the Shannon at Clonmacnoise.
• Coyne · Ó Cadhain · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cadhan — a personal name from the barnacle goose. Woulfe places them at Partry in Mayo, and they are still numerous across Connacht. Also anglicised Kyne — and sometimes translated outright as Barnacle, which is how Nora Barnacle of Galway, James Joyce's wife, came by her surname.
• Craig · — · Ulster Scots
  Scots for 'crag, rock'. A Scottish name, from creag, a rock, common in Ulster since the Plantation. James Craig, Viscount Craigavon, born in Belfast, was the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
• Creagh · Craobhach · Gaelic sept (Dalcassian)
  'of the branch' — from craobh, a branch. A branch of the O'Neills of Clare who, tradition says, took the name from an ancestor who carried a green branch into a battle with the Norsemen at Limerick. They became one of the merchant families of Limerick city, appearing again and again in its lists of mayors and bailiffs.
• Crean · Ó Carráin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Carrán — from carra, a spear. Woulfe's entry is short: Ó Carráin, a variant of Ó Corráin, from carrán, a spear, gives Crean and Crane. He names no territory; the counties shown are approximate.
• Creedon · Ó Críodáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Críodán. An old Munster surname, formerly also Mac Críodáin, and still well known, Woulfe writes. It is especially common in Cork, where the English form is often shortened to Creed.
• Cremin · Ó Cruimín · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cruimín, a diminutive of crom, ‘bent’. A well-known family in Cork, Kerry and Limerick, of West Cork origin, Woulfe writes. They are said to be a branch of the MacCarthys.
• Cronan · Ó Crónáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Crónán — a pet form of Crón, 'dark' or 'swarthy'. Woulfe gives Ó Crónáin in a line: descendant of Crónán, and a rare Laois surname — Leix, as he spells it. The root is crón, dark or swarthy, with the -án ending that turns a description into a person.
• Cronin · Ó Cróinín · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Crónín, 'little dark-yellow one'. Cróinín is a pet form of crón, brown or swarthy. The Ó Cróinín were a family of the Corca Laoighdhe in west Cork, originally seated near Clonakilty and long associated with the church lands around Gougane Barra, where the Lee rises.
• Crowley · Ó Cruadhlaoich · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cruadhlaoch, 'hard hero'. Cruadhlaoch means hard hero. Woulfe gives the name to a branch of the MacDermots in Roscommon, descended from Diarmaid an cruadhlaoch, and to a family originally seated in West Cork, once strong there and now numerous throughout Munster, which he thought was probably a branch of the O'Mahonys.
• Culhane · Ó Cathláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cathalán, 'battle-mighty'. A shortened form of Ó Cathaláin (see Callan). Woulfe says Culhane is the usual English form in Co.
• Cullen · Ó Cuilinn · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Cuileann, 'holly'. Ó Cuilinn, descendant of Cuileann, the holly. Woulfe gives no more than the name and its English forms, Cullen and Quillen among them.
• Culloty · Ó Codlata · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Codladh, 'sleep'. Woulfe gives it in one line: descendant of Codladh, sleep, a rare Kerry surname, pronounced Ó Collata. He records O Collitie, Culloty and Cullity as the anglicised forms.
• Cummins · Ó Cuimín · Gaelic sept & Norman
  Descendant of Cuimín, a diminutive of cam, ‘bent’; or the Norman Comyn. Woulfe says several distinct Irish families were called Ó Cuimín, and that the Sligo family was a branch of the Uí Fiachrach. Separately, the Comyns came to Ireland with the Anglo-Normans.
• Cunningham · Ó Connagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Connagán, a diminutive of Conn. Woulfe found three Irish names behind Cunningham. Ó Connagáin was the name of a Uí Fiachrach family at Moygawnagh in Co.
• Curran · Ó Corráin · Gaelic septs (several)
  Descendant of Corrán. At least three or four unrelated families of the name, from Fermanagh to Kerry. The Kerry Currans are reckoned to descend from the Uí Liatháin kings of east Munster.
• Curtin · Mac Cairteáin · Gaelic sept
  A softened form of Mac Cartáin. Woulfe makes the Cork Curtins a branch of the MacCartans of Co. Down who had settled in Cork before the end of the 16th century.
• Cusack · Ciomhsóg · Norman
  From Cussac in Guyenne. Norman de Cusak, of Cussac in France. The family came with the invasion and settled in Meath and elsewhere in Leinster, one of the most distinguished families of the Pale, many of them holding high judicial office.

Also spelled with C

These are listed on the atlas under another spelling, but the C form is the one many families carry.