BY

The Rev. James O’Laverty, P.P., M.R.I.A., Holywood

Some Account

OF THE SURNAME ACIENTLY WRITTEN

O’LAVERTY, O’LAVVERTY,

LAVERTY, or LAFFERTY,

AND OF

ITS PRESENT LOCATION,

AS EVIDENCED BY

THE PARLIAMENTARY REGISTERS OF VOTERS

While the text has been taken from the original verbatim, I have taken certain liberties with the layout, punctuation, and typography. The goal was to present a historically accurate document that was pleasing to the modern reader’s eye.

The formation of surnames commenced in Ireland about A.D. 1000, when most of the Irish families adopted surnames, which they formed by prefixing Mac – "Son" to the name of father, or Ua (pronounced O) – "grandson" or "descendant" – to that of the grandfather or some more remote ancestor of the family. From the ancient annals of the country we find that most of the person, whose names have been thus preserved in the surnames of their descendants, lived between A.D. 900 and A.D. 1000. The locality to which the surname under consideration originally belonged was Tir-Eoglain. i.e., Eoghan’s country, now anglicized Tyrone, but the ancient Tyrone was more extensive the present county. Eoghan (pronounced Owen), who gave name to it and to Inishowen – "island of Owen," was a brother of Conall, who gave name to Tyrconnell, an adjoining territory nearly conterminous with the diocese of Raphoe, Eoghan and Conall with two other brothers, sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, monarch of Ireland form A.> 379 to A.D. 406, setting out from Meath, during the reign of their father, seized and divided among themselves a large territory in the north of Ireland. Their descendants were in after ages, known as the Norhter Hy-Niall, while the descendants of other sons of Niall of the Nine Hostages, who had pacrcelled out Meath among themselves, were known as the Southern Hy-Niall.

Dr. O’Donovan, M.R.I.A., to a passage under the year 1230, in his great work, the Annals of the Four Master, appended the following note:

Tyrone, Tir-Eoghain, comprised the present counties of Tyrone and Londonderry, and the baronies of Inishowen and Raphoe, in the County of Donegal. The inhabitants bore the genric name of Kinel-Owen (the race of Owen), and had at this period branched off into various families, who were all tributory to one arch-chief, commonly called Righ-Chineil-eoghain – ‘King of Kinel-Owen’ and who was sometimes of the family of MacLoughlin, sometimes of that of O’Neill, and, in one or two instances, of that of O’Flaherty, now Laverty, descended from Aedh Allan, who was one of the sizteen monarchs of the Kinel-Owen race. These once great family names are still numerous in this region ; but none bearing them at present are above the rank of farmers, except those who have entered into holy orders.

The statement of Dr. O’Donovan that the family O’Flaherty or O’Laverty is descended from Aedh Allan, King of Ireland form A.D. 729 to A.D. 738, is taken from the grat genealogical work of Duald MacFirbis, wirtten in the year 1650; the original of which is in the possession of the Earl of Roden. It deduces them from Flaithbheartach (Flavertach) who died A.D. 891, and was a sone of Murchadh, great grandson of Aedh Allan. The first, however, who bore the surname was Flaithbheartach’s grandson, Murchadh Ua Flaithbheartaigh (pronounced Murchoo O’ Laverty), surnamed Glunillar – "of the eagle knee," King of Tyrone, who died A.D. 972. In his notes to the Annals of the Four Masters, under the years 1178 and 1184, writing of Ua Flaithbheartaigh, Dr. O’Donovan says:

This name is still common in the counties of Donegal, Derry, and Tyronne, but by an asperation of the initial ‘F’, is now anglicised Laverty, and sometimes Lafferty. In the name O’Flainn, a similar suppression of the initial ‘F’ takes place in the modern anglicised for O’Lynn. In the old translations of the Annals of Ulster, preserved in the British Museum. The name of the Tyronian family, Ua Flaithbheartaigh, is anglicized O’Lathvertay, which is close enough to the form it has assumed in modern times.

It would seem that the initial ‘F’ was only used to preserve the derivation and was not sounded; for the the Annals of Lock Cé, in the various entries after the year 1183, and even as early as A.D. 1123, omit it altogether, writing the name Ua Laithbheartaigh, a practice followed by the Four Masters after the year 1200.