Ulster AncestryUlster Ancestry
   

Coll

This Donegal name is from MacColl, Gaelic Mac Colla, the name of a galloglass family introduced there from Argyllshire in the sicteenth century.  Colla was a Gaelic personal name and Colla Uais, a semi-legendary Irish king of the fourth century, is claimed as the great ancestor of the MacDonalds.  The MacCalls or MacColls, long settled in Argyllshire, were of the race of Clan Donald but in practice followed the Stewarts of Appin.  Although of no connection with the Ulster MacCalls or MacCauls, there has been some intermingling of the two names (see MacCall).

 

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.