The BOYLE Surname

From Local Ireland O'BOYLE, BOYLE SURNAME HISTORY by Arthur Spears
The second Boyle Family is from "A Little Book of Irish Family Names" by Ida Grehan.


THE
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 There are two Boyle families, both of whom have made an impact on Ireland.  In Gaelic Boyle is O'Baoighill, which possibly means 'having profitable pledges'.  They were a leading sept in Donegal, where their chieftain was duly inaugurated.  The septs territory covered from Donegal Town right around to Kilmacreannan along the west coast.  In the thirteenth century, they gradually became isolated when the territory split into Tir Ainmireach (about Ardara) at one corner and the Three Tuatha at the opposite end (about Falcarragh and Kilmacrennan) with the O’Donnell sept, their lords, filling in the area between.  The O’Donnell’s squeezed them even further in the fourteenth century when they were introducing their gallowglass supporters, the McSweeneys.  While never being dislodged fully anywhere, the O’Boyles set up their sub-chieftainship in Tir Ainmireach.  This area they called Boylagh or ‘O’Boyles Country’. Even though the site was located in McSweeney territory at this stage, the O’Boyles nevertheless retained their traditional chieftain’s inauguration place at Dunkineely.  They also held on to a small castle near Donegal Town.  Their principal seat was at Loughros near Ardara.

During the sixteenth century the O’Boyles were involved in a great contention for their sept’s chieftainship.   The numbers of descendants of Turlogh O’Boyle who were killed over a few generations was dreadful.   It was only with the coming of the great Ulster Plantation that it came to an end.  The O’Boyles were then forced to scatter.  The name is now to be found everywhere in County Donegal but more concentrated in the areas of their ancient territories.  It is to be found in considerable numbers in Dublin (to which all names congregate!) but also in its various forms in Scotland, America and Australia where emigrants brought it.

Its usual anglicised form, Boyle, derives from the Great Earl of Cork, Richard Boyle, the progenitor of the second Boyle line, who came as an 'adventurer' from England and planted vast areas of County Cork in the sixteenth century.  He has become known as 'the first colonial millionaire'.  Richard Boyle 'acquired' the lands of most of the leading Irish families in Munster.  When Sir Walter Raleigh was executed, Richard bought his Waterford estate.  At one time he made Lismore Castle in Co. Waterford his principal seat.

He was the 1st Earl of Cork and the father of 15 children, most of whom, and their descendants, are among the Boyles featured in the Dictionary of National Biography.  A scientific discovery, Boyle's Law, was the work of one of his sons, the only untitled member of this opportunistic family.  William Boyle was among the earliest dramatists to write for the infant Abbey Theatre in Dublin.

This line has influenced the dropping of the O which is now quite infrequent.   In recent years, however, the Boyles have begun to resume their O' prefix.  There are, of course, other forms, particularly Boyd, Bale, Boole, etc., which may be Scottish intrusions or indeed may each have different derivations.

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Copyright © 1999-2003 - V.E.Doyle - Revised 24 Feb. 2003.