Weren't surnames introduced/forced by the English?

The Irish traditional naming is "John, son of Michael, grandson of Martin etc"
Nan Tom Taimín;
Bríd Choilimín Antaine;

Weren't surnames introduced/forced by the English?

The Irish traditional naming is "John, son of Michael, grandson of Martin etc"
Nan Tom Taimín;
Bríd Choilimín Antaine;

Smyth’s analysis of the Annals of Ulster and Inisfallen shows that less than 4% of
surnames had come into existence before 970, about 12-15% originated between 970-
1019, about 25-28% between 1020-1069, about 30-33% between 1070-1120 and about
23-25% between 1120-69.Paucity of records makes it harder to indicate the rate at
which the common people adopted hereditary second names in Ireland, but MacLysaght
has observed that as late as the seventeenth century there were still numbers of people
among the lower orders who did not use hereditary surnames.

Surnames can best be understood firstly by dividing them into two main classes,
monogenetic and polygenetic. Monogenetic surnames have a single origin from one
individual or family, possible examples being Faherty or Asquith, while polygenetic
surnames arose independently in different places and at different times, examples being
Murphy or Smith.... for example Murphy, the most common surname in Ireland,
derives from three distinct and unrelated Ó Murchadha septs which arose in Cork,
Roscommon and Wexford, as well as from a fourth Mac Murchadha sept associated
with Tyrone and later Armagh.

As was the case in other ancient societies, the inhabitants of Ireland in early
times were known by one, personal name, eg, Art, Conn or Niall, as surnames had yet to
evolve. It is true that the Irish had from a remote period a system of collective or
‘people-names’. These names were used in the plural and referred to the whole
population group, or probably more accurately, to its ruling dynastic elite or aristocracy.

Woulfe has pointed out that many of these ancient names are similar in form to modern family names, and he cautioned against confusing them. Thus, for example, Muintear Ifearnáin is the ancient people-name of the O’Quins of Thomond and the family name of the O’Heffernans of Owney, while Clann Dálaigh is the people-name of the O’Donnells of Tirconnell and should not be taken as only referring to the surname Daly.

Given the high profile of Irish ‘clans’, it is worthwhile noting that MacLysaght
specifically stated that he avoided the term ‘clan’ in the Irish context, because ‘its use
might imply the existence in Ireland of a clan system like that so highly developed in
Scotland, which in fact we never had in this country’. MacLysaght preferred instead to
use the term ‘sept’, which he defined as a ‘collective term describing a group of persons
who, or whose immediate and known ancestors, bore a common surname and inhabited
the same locality’

From an early period a system of temporary patronymics was in use, whereby Mac was fixed to the genitive case of thefather’s name, or Ua or Ó to that of the grandfather, eg, Cormac Mac Airt, Laoghaire Mac Néill, and so on. Yet these second names were not surnames in the modern sense of the term, in that they were not fixed or hereditary or common to all members of a
family, and they ceased to be used when the individual so described died.

English administrators and planters during the Tudor period displayed particular
hostility to the Irish use of ‘Mac’ and ‘O’ prefixes.... However, it is important to note that what was involved here was not opposition to Gaelic surnames as such, but to the practice of the heads of
septs using their surnames as chiefly titles, for example, O Neill, Mac Carthy Mór, this
being interpreted as a sign of rejection of English authority

Anglo-Norman Surnames
Given the historical prominence of families bearing Anglo-Norman surnames,
these are perhaps not of such a high frequency as might be expected. It may be a
surprise to find that, as shown in Table 6, there are only five pure Anglo-Norman
surnames in the top hundred, the highest Burke and Fitzgerald being at 17 and 43
respectively, with a well known name such as Butler outside the top 100. It would be
fair to conclude that the impact of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland has been
disproportionate to their numbers.

Weren't surnames introduced/forced by the English?

The Irish traditional naming is "John, son of Michael, grandson of Martin etc"
Nan Tom Taimín;
Bríd Choilimín Antaine;

SO 'Ua' comes from 'Ollamh'?

I thought it was related to Ó and Uí.

I must look into this