Quigley is common in all the four
provinces of Ireland but is most numerous in Ulster,
particularly counties Derry and Donegal. It is in
Gaelic Ó Coigligh, which may derive from the word
coigeal, denoting a 'person with unkempt hair'.
There
were O'Quigleys, a sept of the Uí Fiachra of Co. Mayo,
and another sept of Inishowen in Donegal. The most
common form of the name is now Quigley, but Kegley and
Twigley are also found. The name is well known in
Fermanagh and Monaghan, a sept of O'Quigley there being
erenaghs of Clontivrin in the parish of Clones.
Quigg, an exclusively Ulster name found mainly in Co.
Derry but also in Co. Monaghan, can be an abbreviated
form of Quigley, but it is also the name of a recognised
sept of Co. Derry whose name is in Gaelic Ó Cuaig.
Particularly in Co. Down both these names have been made
Fivey in the mistaken notion that the Gaelic for 'five'
cúig, was an element in their construction.
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.
