Show ContentsMollony History, Family Crest & Coats of Arms

Before Irish names were translated into English, Mollony had a Gaelic form of Ó Maoldhomhnaigh, which means descendant of a servant of the Church. 1

Early Origins of the Mollony family

The surname Mollony was first found in County Clare (Irish: An Clár) located on the west coast of Ireland in the province of Munster, where O'Moloney, "were chiefs of Cuiltenan, now the parish of Kiltonanlea, in the barony of Tulla." 2

Early History of the Mollony family

This web page shows only a small excerpt of our Mollony research. Another 131 words (9 lines of text) covering the years 1601, 1690, 1709, 1726, 1865, 1900, 1925, 1937, 1949 and 1976 are included under the topic Early Mollony History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.

Mollony Spelling Variations

Lacking standardized spellings, scribes and church officials recorded people's name according to how they sounded. This practice often led to the misleading result of one person's name being recorded under several different spellings. Numerous spelling variations of the surname Mollony are preserved in the archival documents of the period. The various spellings of the name that were found include Molony, Maloney, O'Maloney, O'Molony, MacLoughney and many more.

Early Notables of the Mollony family

Prominent amongst the family at this time was Father Donough O'Molony who was tortured to death in 1601. John Mullowney (c. 1690-1726) was born in Derrew, near Ballyheane, County Mayo who began his career as a horse thief and was sentenced to death in Castlebar in his youth. The Grand Jury made a deal with him in which...
Another 57 words (4 lines of text) are included under the topic Early Mollony Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.


United States Mollony migration to the United States +

Under the rule of England, land ownership in Ireland changed dramatically, and many native Irish families found themselves renting out land to farm from absentee owners. This was one of the prime reasons that immigration to North America began in the late 18th century: Irish farmers dreamed of owning their own parcel of land to work for themselves. At this point, the immigrants were at least of modest means for the passage across the Atlantic was often quite dear. In the 1840s the Great Potato Famine created an exodus of people of quite different means. These people were most often destitute: they either sold anything they had to gain a passage or they were sponsored by philanthropic societies. Many of these immigrants were sick from disease and starvation: as a result many did not survive the long transatlantic journey. Although those settlers that did survive were often despised and discriminated against by people already established in these nations, they were critical to rapid development of the powerful industrial nations of the United States and the country that would later become known as Canada. An examination of immigration and passenger lists shows many persons bearing the name of Mollony or one of its variants:

Mollony Settlers in United States in the 19th Century
  • John Mollony, who landed in New York, NY in 1811 3
  • O Mollony, aged 27, who arrived in Maryland in 1813 3


  1. MacLysaght, Edward, Irish Families Their Names, Arms and Origins 4th Edition. Dublin: Irish Academic, 1982. Print. (ISBN 0-7165-2364-7)
  2. O'Hart, John, Irish Pedigrees 5th Edition in 2 Volumes. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1976. Print. (ISBN 0-8063-0737-4)
  3. Filby, P. William, Meyer, Mary K., Passenger and immigration lists index : a guide to published arrival records of about 500,000 passengers who came to the United States and Canada in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. 1982-1985 Cumulated Supplements in Four Volumes Detroit, Mich. : Gale Research Co., 1985, Print (ISBN 0-8103-1795-8)


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