This popular Ulster name is most common
in counties Antrim and Armagh and can be of Irish,
Scottish or English origin, In England the name,
originally Hamel, derives from the Old English word
hamel, meaning ''scarred' or 'mutilated'.
In Scotland
the name is of Norman territorial origin. The first
of the name on record there was William de Hameville in
thirteenth-century Annandale in Dumfriesshire. The
name is well recorded in Lothian but was most common in
Ayrshire and indeed, Hugh Hammill of Roughwood in
Ayrshire was one of those who accompanied Montgomery of
the Ards to Ulster.
However, already in Ulster at that time, the
O'Hamills, Gaelic Ó hAghmaill, were one of the leading
septs of the Cenél Binnigh, a brianch of the Cenél
Eoghain. As such the O'Hamills claim descent from
Binneach, son of Eoghan, son of the fifth-century Niall
of the Nine Hostages, founder of the Uí Néill
dynasty. The O'Hamills ruled a territory in south
Tyrone and Armagh and from the twelfth century were poets
and ollovs (learned men) to the powerful O'Hanlons.
By the seventeenth century the name was most numerous in
Armagh and Monaghan and by 1900 was also common in
Louth. The prefix O' is now used only in Co. Derry,
and there rarely. The name has also been made
Hamilton in that Country and elsewhere.
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.
