Irish surnames starting with S

The S names in brief

• Savage · Sábhaois · Norman
  Le sauvage — 'the wild one'. Normans of the Ards peninsula since 1177 who survived the earldom's fall as a self-ruling 'nation' — electing their own captain in Gaelic style while flying a Norman name.
• Scanlon · Ó Scannláin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Scannlán — from scannal, 'contention' or 'strife'. Three distinct septs of the name, the oldest the Ó Scannail of west Munster, anglicised Scannell. Others were seated in Sligo and in east Clare.
• Scully · Ó Scolaidhe · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of the scholar. The 'scholar' sept, transplanted from Westmeath to Tipperary, where the Scully Cross at Cashel, its top blown off by lightning, still marks their plot beside the kings' rock.
• Shanahan · Ó Seanacháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Seanachán, 'the old, wise one'. A Dál gCais sept whose name shares its root with seanchaí — the storyteller. Fitting, for a people whose history survived precisely because someone always told it.
• Sheehan · Ó Síodhacháin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Síodhach, 'the peaceful'. The 'peaceful' sept of the Dál gCais — though as trumpeters and household troops to the O'Briens they earned the name the loud way first.
• Sheehy · Mac Síthigh · Scots-gallowglass
  Son of Sítheach, 'the peaceful' — or 'the otherworldly'. Gallowglass warriors hired from Scotland by the Earls of Desmond around 1420, settled in Limerick. Fr Nicholas Sheehy of Clogheen, judicially executed in 1766 on perjured evidence, became a martyr-name of the penal era.
• Sheridan · Ó Sirideáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Sirideán, 'the seeker'. A Cavan erenagh family that turned to the pen: Thomas Sheridan was Swift's closest friend, his grandson Richard Brinsley Sheridan conquered the London stage, and General Phil Sheridan rode for the Union.
• Sherlock · Scurlóg · Norman-English
  'fair-locked' — bright-haired. Pale gentry with a name Conan Doyle later borrowed for the world's most famous detective; Scurlockstown in Meath keeps the older, stranger Irish spelling.
• Shortall · Seartal · Norman-English
  'short neck' (a nickname). Kilkenny gentry from the 13th century, mayors and monument-builders of the marble city — proof that even a joke nickname can carry seven centuries of civic weight.
• Sinnott · Sionóid · Norse-English
  Sige-noth, 'victory-bold'. Pre-Norman English stock planted in Wexford with the invasion; Colonel David Sinnott held Wexford town against Cromwell — and died with it. The name never left the county.
• Slattery · Ó Slatara · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Slatra, 'the strong, bold'. A compact Clare sept from Ballyslattery in the O'Brien heartland — 'bold' by etymology, and bold enough that the name now turns up wherever the Irish do.
• Smith · Mac Gabhann · Gaelic sept
  Son of the smith. The Mac Gabhann sept of Bréifne mostly translated their name to Smith under English pressure — hiding one of Ireland's oldest trades in plain sight.
• Stack · Stac · Norman-English
  Uncertain — perhaps 'haystack-built'. English settlers of the 13th century who became so Irish that Stacks fought for the Desmonds, sheltered in the Stacks Mountains named for them, and filled the ranks of every Kerry rising since.
• Stewart · — · Ulster Scots
  Steward of the royal household. An office that became a name: the steward of the royal household of Scotland, a post held from the 12th century by the family who eventually took the throne themselves and gave it the spelling Stuart in their French years. The name came to Ulster in numbers with the plantation of the 1600s, carried by farmers and weavers rather than kings, and it is now among the commonest surnames in the north.
• Sweeney · Mac Suibhne · Scots-gallowglass
  Son of Suibhne, 'well-going'. The great gallowglass dynasty: axe-wielding heavy infantry from the Hebrides who became hereditary war-captains to O'Donnell — paid in land, cattle and glory.

Also spelled with S

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