The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-08-29
THE MACS AND o's.

Hna6 the SyllaDles as PrenxeS 30 Irish
Names Literally Mean.
There is popular rhyme:
by Mac and o.
You'll always know
True Irishmen, they say;
For If they lack
Both O. and Nc
No Irishmen are they"
Id est:
per Mac ataue o, tu veros cognoscis Hibernos
His duobus demptis, nullus Hibernus adest.'
What do Mac and o. as prefxes to
Irish names literally mean?
Answer. Authority: Lowers "Pat-
ronymica Britannica. 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 a 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 very common prefix
to 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 a 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 a 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 1913 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 Ireland
that while the Mac conveys no motion
of high birth the O. is a mark of good
family. In the province of Connaught
the o. notifies the gentleman; the
O'Connors, the O'Flahertys, 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 de- 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's Irish Dictionary il
gives:
hdCY d SOns lb 10 SOu6-
times used for the young of brutes.
1t is prefxed 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
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 ONeil family
and OBrien means the direct descend
ants of Brian Boirbhe.
On the other hand OaCaslaen means
the family from Castlelyons in the
county of Cork. Chicago Mail.