This English name is numerous only in
Dublin and Uister, where it is particularly common in Co.
Antrim. The Hebrew name Elijah was made in Greek
Elias and this personal name was very popular in medieval
England. It became in Old English Elys or Elis and
this came to be the basis of the surname Ellis. It
is fairly common in both Scotland and Ireland from about
the thirteenth century onwards but most in Ulster arrived
in the post-Plantation period.
GLOSSARY
Clan
From the Gaelic
clann which means literally 'children'.
Mac-
From the Gaelic
mac, meaning 'son'
O'
From the Gaelic
Ó, meaning 'grandson', 'grandchild' or
'descendant'; Ní is the femine form of Ó,
meaning 'daughter' or 'descendant'
Plantation (Ulster)
The
redistribution of escheated lands after the
defeat of the Ulster Gaelic lords and the 'Flight
of the Earls' in 1607. Only counties
Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh and
Cavan were actually 'planted', portions of land
there being distributed to English and Scottish
families on their lands and for the building of
bawns.
Sept
A family group of
shared ancestry living in the same locality
Undertakers
Powerful English
or Scottish landowners who undertook the
plantation of British settlers on the lands they
were granted.
Gaelic
This word in
Ireland has no relation to Scotland. As a
noun it is used to denote the Irish language, as
an adjective to denote native Irish as opposed to
Norman or English origin.
Erenagh
From the Irish
Gaelic airchinneach, meaning 'hereditary steward
of church lands'. A family would hold the
ecclesiastical office and the right to the church
or monastery lands, the incumbent at any one time
being the erenagh.
