Most people of this name in Ireland
spell it as above, though occasionally the variant Grier
is used; these and also Grierson are basically the same,
being anglicized forms of the Scottish MacGregor, which
is found unchanged in Co. Derry. Greer is very
numerous in Co. Antrim now and it occurs many times in
the Hearth Money Rolls for that county (1669) and to some
extent also in the rolls of other Ulster counties.
The principal families of the name came to Ireland in the
seventeenth century, the earliest in the Plantation of
Ulster and others a generation later. Derry-born
Samuel McCurdy Greer (1810-1880), who ended as county
court judge of Cavan and Leitrim, was co-founder of the
Tenant League in 1850 with Charles Gavan Duffy.
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.
