The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1889-06-29
THE MACS AND O'S.
What tho Syllables as Prehxes to irish
Names Literally Mean.
There is a popular rhyme:

What tho Syllables as Prefixes to irish
Names Literally Mean.
There is popular rhyme:
"By Mac and o.
You'll always know
True Irishmet- they say;
Fori they lack
Both o. and Nc
No Irishmen nre they"
Id est:
"Per Mac atuue O, tu voros cognoscis Hiboinos
His duobus dcmpts, nullus Hibernus adest"
What do Mac and o. as prefixes to
Irish names literally meanP
Answer. [Authority: Lowers pat
ronymica Britannica. "1-Mac, a we'll
known prefix of surnames of Celtic
origin, signifying "son of, and there
fore cognate with the Ap of Welsh, the
Fitz of Anglo-Norman, and the son Of
English use. In England and other
countries of Europe the great staple
Of family names is derived from ter-
ritorial source, but among the Celts OF
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales the sur
name was almost uniformly that of the
father or some ancestor with a prefix.
90" This is a very common prefix
10 Irish surnames, and is the Celtic ma,
grandson, descendant. In England and
other European countries the noble and
wealthy generally borrowed their
family names from their landed possess
sions, but in Ireland the names of septs
or tribes were uniformly borrowed
from those of their ancient chiefs and
ancestors. The famous King, Brian
Boru, who fell at the battle of Clontar
in 1914, published an edict that the
descendants of the heads of tribes and
families then in power should take
name from them, either from the faith
ers or grandfathers, and that those
names should become hereditary and
fixed forever. In some instances, how
ever, families who boasted of distin-
guished ancestor of earlier date as
sumed his name rather than that of the
grandfather or father.
o., or rather Oy, was used in the
sense of grandson by the Scottish High
landers; thus we read of very old
lady of Gaelic race who, Argus-like,
could boast of 100 "Oyes."
The Galwegians, who prided them
selves upon not being Irishmen, issued
an order in 1918 prohibiting the native
septs from entering their town, declar-
ing that ''neither o. ne Mac should
strut ne swagger through the streets
of Galway"
A regular error prevails in iceland
,,,l,i1p +hA Mnp M ,.,At ion
of high birth the O. is a mark of good
family. In the province of Connaught
the " notifies the gentleman; the
O'Connors, the OFlahertys, and the
O'Malleys are somebodies, while their
distant kinsmen, the Connors, the
Flahertys and the Malleys are nobodies.
Much the same notion prevails in
France concerning the prefix dc. In
Ireland the o. is never prefXed to any
name derived from trade, with the sin
gle exception OF O'Gowan, which is
similar to our Smithson.
In O'Brien'5 Irish Dictionary" it
gives:
Mac, a son. 1t is some
times used for the young of brutes.
1t is pretiXed to the name of
several of the great families of Ire
land"
There is another word, an adjective,
which means clean, pure, etc. o is a
proposition, meaning from, and is used
in connection with names to denote
the place from which a person or fam
lily comes, or descent from a particular
parentage, as O'Neil, which would in
dicate descent from the O'Neil family,
and O'Brien means the direct descend
ants of Brian Boirbhe.
On the other hand O'Caslaen means
the family from Castlelyons in the