How Irish is Your Name Really?

Protestant Irish are the real victims? You have to forget and look the other way about a lot that happened to the Catholics. The Potatoe Famine,or Cromwell was not mentioned. I guess that would confuse to point. Incomplete History like this gets in the way of peace. The Irish people fought with the Viking, and then assumulated them. The same is true with the Norman Irish. It was until religion and history was entered into the mix that the troubles began. I have a Scotch-Irish grandfather, and the rest our all Irish. My mother love her father, and my grandfather loved her red hair. My son-in-law is English, and a good husband, and the father of my granddughter. Do you ever hear of the Viking-Irish complaining about King Brian?

@MOL - thanks for the tip about Donegal. We have 2 factions in the family debating over whether our MacLaughlins are Scots-Irish or Irish. I may have to draw blood for DNA. I'm an RN, so I'm not afraid of doing just that - LOL. I think the debate started when it was discovered that we had a lot Protestants in that line around the time of emigration to the U.S. and afterwards and we know they came from the north. In Ireland, they married a lot of people with surnames beginning with Mac and Mc.

I've seen quite a few Mac and McLaughlins in the north and Donegal. Some have even said the O'Loughlins of Clare descend more anciently from the MacLaughlins from the North. I have not yet seen much documentation on that claim however. The old County Clare histories do not make mention of that at all. Good luck on your search jamieLM, you may have to try DNA to settle the arguments...

Thanks so much for the helpful link. We have a McLaughlin in our family tree and there's been much debate within the family about the counties, even country, of origin.