Ewing is quite a numerous surname in
Ireland; in 1866 there were 27 births registered for it.
Including a few for the synonyms Ewings and Ewin, while
in 1890 the number was 24, in both cases almost entirely
in Ulster. In that province it has since the
seventeenth century been especially associated with the
counties of Donegal, Derry, Tyrone and Antrim. Many
Ewing wills are recorded for the dioceses comprising
these northern areas. The "census" of
1659 is one of the earliest Irish documents to include
the name - in it Alexander Ewing appears as one of the
leading inhabitants of Letterkenny, Co. Donegal. A
few years later it appears frequently in the Hearth Money
Rolls for that county. It is probable that Dublin
Ewings, such as the notable printing and publishing
family of the mid-eighteenth century, came to the capital
from the north.
The origin of the name is
interesting. According to Reaney it goes back to
the Greek eugenes (well-born), cognate with the Gaelic
Irish eoghan. Mac GiollaDomhnaigh, too, states that
Ewing, also found as MacEwing, is a form of the well
known Scottish name MacEwen, gaelice Mac Eoghain, i.e.
our Irish MacKeown.
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.
