Irish surnames starting with L

The L names in brief

• Lalor · Ó Leathlobhair · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Leathlobhar. One of the Seven Septs of Laois, transplanted en masse to Kerry in 1609 to break their resistance. James Fintan Lalor of the same stock became the fiercest land-reform thinker of the 1840s: 'Ireland her own, from the sod to the sky.'
• Larkin · Ó Lorcáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Lorcán, 'fierce'. Septs in four provinces, but one man made the name thunder: Big Jim Larkin of the 1913 Lockout — 'the great appear great because we are on our knees: let us rise.'
• Lennon · Ó Leannáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Leannán, 'lover' or 'sweetheart'. Several unrelated septs share the name, including a Fermanagh family who were keepers of relics for the Maguires. Also recorded as Ó Lionáin, from lonán, 'blackbird'.
• Loftus · Ó Lachtnáin · Gaelic sept (renamed)
  Descendant of Lachtnán, 'milk-white'. Mayo's Ó Lachtnáin septs adopted the Yorkshire name Loftus wholesale — a west-of-Ireland name wearing an English overcoat, with the Gaelic still warm underneath.
• Lombard · Lombard · Italian-Norman
  'the Lombard' — an Italian banker. Medieval Italian bankers who settled Cork's trade; Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh in exile, was Hugh O'Neill's agent in Rome — high finance to high treason in three centuries.
• Looney · Ó Luanaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Luanach, 'warrior' (luan, champion). A Thomond sept whose name means champion — whatever English ears later heard in it. The Loonies of Clare were still filling parish rolls when their name filled American vaudeville jokes.
• Lynch · Ó Loingsigh / de Lench · Gaelic sept & Norman tribe
  Descendant of Loingseach, 'mariner'. Twice-born: a Gaelic sept, and the greatest of the fourteen merchant Tribes of Galway — who gave the city 84 mayors and the dark legend of Mayor James Lynch FitzStephen hanging his own son.

Also spelled with L

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