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The word 'kirk' for 'church' is common in the north of England
and in Scotland, areas where the Danes settled in the tenth century. (The
Scandinavians did not use the sound 'ch'.) Kirk is a Scottish name of various
local origins, from residence near a church. The Dumfriesshire name Kirkhoe,
now rare, also became Kirk.
In Ireland the name is most common in counties
Antrim and Louth, though a particular concentration was noted in the parish of
Killaney, Barony of Upper Castlereagh, Co. Down, in the mid-nineteenth century.
In Co. Monaghan the name Kirke is thought to be a variant of Carragher, Gaelic
Mac Fhearchair, through the seventeenth-century variants Kearcher and Kirker.
Kirk was also noted as synonymous with Kirkpatrick around Coleraine and Limavady
in Co. Derry at the start of the twentieth centry (see Kirkpatrick).
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. |
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