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| Origins Available: |
| | Ireland |
Before Irish names were translated into English, O'Molony had a Gaelic form of Ó Maoldhomhnaigh, which means descendant of a servant of the Church. 1
The surname O'Molony 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
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our O'Molony 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 O'Molony History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Names during the Middle Ages were typically recorded as they sounded and in many cases, one's surname spelling changed with each record. Spelling variations revealed in the search for the origin of the O'Molony family name include Molony, Maloney, O'Maloney, O'Molony, MacLoughney and many more.
Prominent amongst the family at this time was
Irish families began leaving their homeland for North America in the late 18th century. These families were usually modestly well off, but they were looking forward to owning and working on a sizable tract of land of their own. This pattern of emigration continued until the 1840s when the Great Potato Famine sparked a major exodus of destitute and desperate Irish people. These people were not leaving for a grant of land in North America because by this time the East Coast had reached its saturation point and free land was scarce. They were merely looking to escape the disease, starvation, and hopelessness that Ireland had fallen into. Although these unfortunate immigrants did not receive a warm welcome by the established populations in the United States and what would become Canada, they were absolutely critical to the rapid development that these two nations enjoyed. They would help populate the western lands and provide the cheap labor required for a rapid industrialization. An examination of passenger and immigration lists has revealed many early bearers of the name O'Molony or one of its variants: Eleanor Moloney settled in Boston, Massachusetts. in 1767; Joseph Moloney settled in Pennsylvania in 1772; Biddy, Edmund, George, James, John, Michael, and Patrick Molony all arrived in Canada in 1847.