Moore
Moore is a very numerous name in Ireland: with some 16,500 of the population so called it holds twentieth place in the list of commonest names. The great majority of these (apart from the metropolitan area) are in Munster and Ulster. It is practically impossible to say what proportion of these are of Gaelic Irish origin and what proportion of English extraction, for Moore is also indigenous in England and very common there (it has thirty- ninth place in their list). It would perhaps be better to say Anglo-Norman rather than English, since Anglo-Norman Moores established themselves in Munster soon after the invasion. These Moores are called de Mora in Irish, a phonetic rendering of the English name which is derived from the word moor (heathy mountain). The Old Irish Moores are O' Mordha, from the word Mordha (stately, noble). The eponymous ancestor Mordha was twenty-first in descentfrom Conal Cearnach, the most distinguished of the heroes of the Red Branch. The O'Mores were the leading sept of the Seven Septsof Leix, the other six being tributary to them. According to Keating, the O'Mores have St. Fintan as their protector. Of thirteen families of Moore recorded in Burke's Landed Gentry of Ireland (1912) , twelve claim to have come to Ireland as settlers from England or Scotland and one to be an offshoot of the O'Mores.
Of the many Moores who have distinguished themselves in various phases of Irish life the most famous was, perhaps, Thomas Moore (1779-1852), the poet: he was of a Co. Wexford family. The Moores of Moore Hall, Co. Mayo, produced George Henry Moore (1810-1870), the politician, and his two sons George Moore (1852-1933) the novelist, and Col. Maurice Moore (1854-1939), author and ardent worker in the Nationalist cause in the present century. The Moores of Moore Hall descend from the Moores of Alicante, Spain, who were English in origin
The family name of the Earls of Drogheda is Moore: their ancestor came to Ireland under Queen Elizabeth I. The Moores of Barmeath have been settled there since the fourteenth century.
Source: Irish Families by Edward MacLysaght--Irish Academic Press 1991 |
