family crest irish
Our first US ancestor, Robert Kenney, arrived from County Antrim around 1790/1 but from where did our family originate? Family lore has that we’re Scotch-Irish suggesting the origin actually came from Scotland via Ireland.
The surname Kenney is of Old Gaelic origin, found in Scotland and Ireland, and is the Anglicized form of the Gaelic “O Cionnaoith”, composed of the Gaelic prefix “O”, male descendant of, and the personal name “Coinneach”, an Old Irish personal name borne by a 6th Century monk and saint who gave his name to the town of Kilkenny, “Church of Coinneach”. The name in Scotland, may, in some instances, be the Anglicized form of the Gaelic personal name “Cionaodha”, perhaps composed of “cion”, respect, affection, and “Aodh”, the pagan god of fire. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to “develop” often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling (1,2).
Presbyterians in the Northern part of Ireland represented the Scotch or Scotch-Irish (3) and our later Kenney’s were Presbyterians. Church affiliation in Northern Ireland was very characteristic of race and nationality since the beginning of the 17th century (3). The Scots represented 38% of population in Antrim in the late 1800s. The name Scotch-Irish refers to Scottish people who came and lived in Ireland not Scottish people who inter-married with Irish people (3). “These Scottish people in Ireland to-day exhibit all the distinctive racial characteristics of their Scottish forefathers; and have none of the peculiar qualities… to the offspring of mixed marriages between Irish Protestants and Roman Catholics” (3). Thus the Ulster Scots are of unmixed Scottish blood (3)
Hence while Robert Kenney emigrated from Ireland, his ancestry was possibly and most likely Scottish.
(1) Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Kenney
(2) http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~gkbopp/KINNEY/Research/Variations/variations.htm
(3) The Scotch-Irish by Charles A Hanna, Vol 1, GP Putnam’s Sons New York 1902. pg 159-161
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