The earliest authentic historical record of this family or tribe is contained in the "Geographica of Claudius Ptolemi", A. D. 150 (Encyclopedae Britannica) who identifies it under the name Dalrenii located in the Northernmost Fifth of Iverio (Ireland).   In the Books of the Four Masters and of Fergin it is related that the Dairenoi took the name of Niochaill (Neachaill) when, in accordance with the ordinance of Brian Boru, King of Ireland, they adopted the Clan system in the Tenth century.   Niochaill was a tribal hero of the Eighth century, of the blood of the tribe and it's most famous Chieftain.

The Dairenoi was one of the tribes of the Keltii (Celts) under Milesius who crossed from Europe into Ireland in the second or third century BC and conquered the Firbolghs.

The Dairenii throughout the first ten centuries of the Christian era were a numerous and powerful tribe, instrumental in placing several of their kings on the central throne of Ireland and closely related to the largest families of the Gaelic race, inhabiting the northern and north central portions of the Island.

They came in early contact with the Vikings who began to raid the Irish coast in the Ninth century.   The Dairenii became closely allied with the Snadkoll band of Norse invaders. Princesses of the Dairenii intermarried with the Chieftains of the Vikings and many of the Dairenii intermarried into the large bands of the Norsemen who settled in the Dairenian lands.   These particular bands of Vikings had established their strongholds in the Western Isles (Hebrides) north of Ireland and west of Scotland and during the next century there was a constant communication between the Dairenians of Ireland and of the Hebrides.  

The Dairenians from this time on became closely identified with the Norsemen participating in their voyages and joining with them in their wars against other Viking bands and against the Scots and British although we frequently find them returning to North Ireland to join their country-men in wars there.   By the middle of the Tenth century the Dairenians, now the Clan MacNeachaill, reside principally in Skye, one of the larger islands of the Hebrides.   In 1146 history records that Ottir Snackoll, a prince of the Clan MacNicaill was king of the Danes in Dublin.  

This illustrates how closely related the tribe had now become with the Norsemen of both Danish and Norwegian extraction.   It is known also that the MacNicaills formed the larger part of two Viking bands which ravaged the East coast of England in the Tenth century and established colonies from which have sprung the English houses of Nicholl and Nicholson in Northumberland and Cumberland.   They spread from the Isle of Skye onto the neighboring coast of Argyllshire and Rosshire in Scotland and many of that name are found in those counties.

The infusion of Norse blood into the tribe was beneficial historically because of the fact that many records of the tribe were preserved in Norse Runes and Sagas in the Western Isles and in Iceland and in the annals of the King, and of the Danes in Jutland who often fought with and against the MacNichaills.   Meanwhile, repeated return of portions of the tribe to Ireland to participate in tribal wars there has resulted in a considerable record of the MacNicaills being preserved in Irish history.

With the rule of the Scottish Kings and their gradual overlordship of the Islands, coincident with the recession of the Viking power and assimilation of the Vikings into the populations of Ireland, Scotland and England the MacNicaills became a Scottish clan with the center of their power in Skye.

Andrew Nicaill's son is the last Chief of Skye to figure in history with the Norsemen.   He commanded the long boat fleet of King Haakon at Largs in a battle against the Scots in 1262 A. D.   It is recorded that he was of gigantic stature and that this was a characteristic of the MacNicaills.  The Norse-Irish were defeated and Andrew Nicholson, as history refers to him, harried the coast of England in almost the last of the Viking raids.   Many of the clan returned to Tyreconnell, (now Donegal) in North Ireland at this period.   From this time until 1475 the Clan is known in Scottish history as the MacNicols and the families, are variously called MacNicol, Nicholl and Nicholson.

In the Fifteenth century the MacLeods, a kindred family of Norse-Irish origin in the Hebrides, which was rising rapidly under the protection of the MacDonalds of the Isles, claimed the Clan Chieftaincy by reason of the marriage of the only daughter of the existing Clan Chief to Torcil MacLeod.

Constant warfare, emigration and settlement in other lands had by this time greatly weakened the Clan in numbers.   A census in 1880 in Scotland reveals 3000 families of the name but in the middle ages and up until the Sixteenth century the family must have numbered 20,000 souls at the height of its power.

Thus, after a thousand years on Skye, of the MacNicols by 1800 only a few remained.   Most of the families returned to North Ireland during the religious persecution of the Jacobites and in the period 1600 to 1750 we again find them becoming a numerous clan in the original land of the Darinii, -Ulster Ireland. Differences in spelling of the family name began to be noticed as designating members of the family who were Protestant from those who were Catholic in Ireland.   The portion which had now returned to Ireland being for the most part Protestant.   Donegal and Tyrone were the counties reporting the largest number of families, of Nichols, Nicols, MacNicols, and O'Niocals in the census of 1800.

Any modern day search for ancestors in Ireland must contend with a severe obstacle.   During the "Troubles" the British government ordered that the Parish Records of the Church of Ireland were to be moved to Dublin for safekeeping.   In 1922 the Four Courts building in which they and other vital records were stored became the scene of bitter fighting, a siege, and subsequent fire.   That fire destroyed untold numbers of original birth, marriage, and death records, wills, deeds, and census returns.   While many of the records have been reconstructed from collateral sources, it is highly unusual to be able to follow a commoner family further back than the first decades of the nineteenth century. Fortunately, the Protestant Householders List of 1740 for Fahan Parish, Co. Donegal, survived the 1922 fire, and we find that James Nikill (Nichol) is recorded therein as living in the townland of Magherabeg.   This is the earliest record found to date of this particular family.

Fahan (pronounced: Fawn), also known as Fochan and Fawn, is a parish in the barony of Innishowen, seven miles northwest of the city of Londonderry.   The parish is bounded on the west by Lough Swilly and contains 10,040 acres.   Now divided into two separate parishes, Lower and Upper, it was a single ecclesiastical unit in the eighteenth century.

There are two townlands named Magherabeg (pronounced: Ma-hair-a-beg) in Fahan.   The one in which this family lived is 295 acres in size and two miles distant along the road running Northwesterly from Burnfoot along the East shore of Lough Swilly.

The Fahan Parish Church of St. Mura, (Church of Ireland) to which the family belonged in the late 1700s, exists today and is still attended by family members.   The older family graves are in Fahan Old Graveyard, where St. Mura's Cross is located, surrounding the ruins of the old Protestant church.   Both Catholics and Protestants buried their dead there until the 19th century, but unfortunately no record has survived of individual burial sites and there are few surviving markers.   The only identifiable Nichol gravesite is that of Mitchell Nichol and his wife Margaret dating from 1911.

Fahan Old Graveyard is truly ancient.   The old Protestant church there, abandoned in 1820, was built on the ruins of a monastic abbey founded about A.D. 550 by St. Mura, a disciple of St. Columba. Prior to that, Fahan is thought to have been a Druidic burial ground dating back to 2000 B.C., making it perhaps the oldest burial ground in all Ireland.   The present day St. Mura's Parish Church is north of and immediately across the street from the old location.   Numerous family members are buried in the graveyard there in the keeping of a Nichol cousin, John Walker, who is the part-time Sexton.

The spelling of a family name in early records typically reflects the scrivener's spelling rather than that of the individual bearing it.   Our Irish cousins spell their name NICHOLL today, but that was not always the case.   The earliest record found to date of our family name in Co. Donegal is the 1665 Hearth Money Roll wherein William NICHAL is recorded living in the Townland of Manister, Clonleigh Parish, and Thomas NICHOL residing in the Townland of Newton (Newtoncunningham), Taughboyne Parish. Clonleigh is over twenty miles from Fahan while Newtoncunningham is no more than eight miles distant.   Are we descended from one or the other or perhaps both? Certainly Thomas seems a likely possibility, but proof is impossible given the paucity of early Irish records.   The name appears as NIKILL in the 1740 Protestant Householders List for Donegal.   In the records of the Fahan Parish Church the name is NICHOL in 1774, NICKLE in 1803 and 1807, NICHOL again in 1809, NICKLE in 1829, and in 1830 the first recorded instance of NICHOLL when John married Letitia Gamble.   With the exception of Mitchell Nichol (1844-1911), the descendants of those who remained in Ireland spell the name NICHOLL to this day.

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