Boyle in Ireland is the anglicized form of the Gaelic Ó Baoighill (modern Irish Ó Baoill), a family of Cenél Conaill in County Donegal who gave their name to the barony of Boylagh. O'Boyle and Boyle are the same name, and it is still one of the commonest surnames in the county. Every Boyle and O'Boyle design we make is gathered in our Boyle and O'Boyle Irish family gifts collection.
Quick answer: Boyle and O'Boyle come from Ó Baoighill, "descendant of Baoigheall." Father Patrick Woulfe counts the O'Boyles among the principal families of Cenél Conaill, of the same stock as the O'Donnells and O'Dohertys, and places them first in the Three Tuaths of north-west Donegal and then in the country now called Boylagh. The name is strongest in Donegal, with Mayo and Antrim next. The Boyles who became Earls of Cork, including the chemist Robert Boyle, are a separate family of English origin.
What Does the Boyle Name Mean?
The surname is built on the old personal name Baoigheall. Woulfe, in Irish Names and Surnames (1923), explains it as probably standing for baoithgheall, "vain pledge," from baoth, rash or foolish, and geall, a pledge. Edward MacLysaght, as summarized by John Grenham, also connects it to geall. The prefix Ó means "descendant," so O'Boyle is simply the fuller English spelling of the same name. Boyle is now far more common: the birth indexes of 1890 recorded 273 Boyle births against 20 O'Boyle, with a further 17 under the Ulster variant Boal.
Boal and the County Down form Bohill need a separate note. MacLysaght's account, via Grenham, holds that many Boyles and Boals in Antrim and Down descend from the Scottish Norman family of de Boyville rather than from Ó Baoighill, so a family's county is the first clue to which Boyle story is theirs.
Where Did the Gaelic Boyle Family Come From?
The Ó Baoighill were a sept of Cenél Conaill, the kindred that held Tír Chonaill, the territory that became County Donegal. Woulfe lists them with Ó Domhnaill, Ó Dochartaigh and Ó Gallchobhair among the leading names of that kindred. He records that the O'Boyles were originally chiefs of the Three Tuaths in the north-west of the county. When those territories passed to the MacSweeneys, O'Boyle became chief of Tír Ainmhireach in the west of Donegal, which was known from then on as Críoch Bhaoigheallach, "O'Boyle's country." That is the barony of Boylagh, recorded on logainm.ie as Baollaigh, and it takes in the civil parishes of Templecrone (the Rosses), Lettermacaward, Inishkeel and Killybegs Lower.
MacLysaght describes the medieval family as powerful and respected, sharing control of the north-west with the O'Donnells and O'Dohertys. Through the later middle ages the O'Donnell lords held the overlordship of Tír Chonaill, and the O'Boyles were a leading sept within their lordship. Their world is told most fully in our history of the O'Donnell lords of Tyrconnell, whose fortunes the O'Boyles shared through the rise and fall of Gaelic Ulster.
The name is still written into the landscape. In Templecrone parish the townland of Crohyboyle is Croich Uí Bhaoill, "Ó Baoill's gallows," and the Placenames Database notes that (O') Boyle remains a common surname in the locality.
Who Were the Notable O'Boyles of Donegal?
Woulfe notes that references to the name in the Annals of the Four Masters and the Fiants of Elizabeth are very numerous, and that during the Elizabethan wars the O'Boyles spread into nearly every county of Ireland. Among the churchmen of the family, Niall O'Boyle was appointed bishop of Raphoe in 1591. The Four Masters record that he died at Gleann-Eidhnighe on 6 February 1611 and was buried at Inis Caoil, the island of Inishkeel off the Boylagh coast, in the family's own country.
What Happened to the O'Boyles After the Flight of the Earls?
The collapse of Gaelic Ulster struck the O'Boyles as it struck their O'Donnell overlords. The defeat at Kinsale in 1601, the Flight of the Earls from nearby Rathmullan in 1607, and the Plantation of Ulster that followed swept away the old order of Tyrconnell, and the O'Boyle lands along the Donegal coast passed to planters and Crown grantees. The family did not leave, however. They remained rooted in west Donegal as one of the most numerous names of the county, farming and fishing the same Atlantic parishes their chiefs had held. Boyle is today the third most common surname in Donegal, and the barony of Boylagh still carries the family's name on the map.
The Great Famine fell heavily on the crowded, poor land of west Donegal, and Boyle families emigrated in great numbers: to Scotland, with Glasgow a short sea-crossing away, to the cities of the American northeast, and to Australia. The Rosses in particular kept close ties with Glasgow through generations of emigration and seasonal work, and Boyle became one of the characteristic names of the Irish in Scotland.
Who Was Robert Boyle, and Is He Connected to the Donegal Boyles?
No. A wholly separate Boyle family, English in origin, rose to enormous power in Munster in the early seventeenth century. Richard Boyle came to Ireland from Kent in 1588, amassed a vast fortune, and became the first Earl of Cork; MacLysaght traces his family back to Norman Herefordshire. His fourteenth child, Robert Boyle, born at Lismore Castle in County Waterford on 25 January 1627, became one of the founding figures of modern science, the chemist whose law on the pressure and volume of gases still bears his name and a founder of the Royal Society. His story is told in our feature on Robert Boyle and the birth of modern chemistry. This line of Earls of Cork, Shannon and Burlington shares no ancestry with the Gaelic Ó Baoighill of Donegal; the spelling alone unites them.
The name reaches into Scotland too, where the Boyles of Kelburn, Earls of Glasgow, carried the name as a Norman-Scottish noble house, a third, distinct Boyle story across the water.
Where Is the Boyle Name Found Today?
Boyle is one of the fifty most common surnames in Ireland, ranked 49th in 1890 and 46th in 1996. It is overwhelmingly a northern and western name: County Donegal above all, where it is the third most numerous surname, with strong numbers in Mayo and Antrim. The diaspora is large in Scotland, the United States, Canada and Australia, the Scottish community reflecting the long Donegal–Glasgow link. A Donegal or Mayo origin points to the Gaelic Ó Baoighill, while an Antrim or Down family may belong to the Scottish de Boyville line described above.
How Do I Research Boyle and O'Boyle Ancestors?
- Civil records: IrishGenealogy.ie holds the state birth, marriage and death registers, with all births and deaths from 1864 and non-Catholic marriages from 1845. Search both Boyle and O'Boyle.
- Census: the National Archives of Ireland has the 1901 and 1911 census returns free online, with townland-level detail for Templecrone, Inishkeel and Lettermacaward.
- PRONI: the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland is essential for Boyle and Boal families in Antrim, Down and Derry, and holds estate papers touching Donegal.
- Griffith's Valuation: the mid-nineteenth-century land survey lists every occupier and shows how thickly Boyles were settled in each west Donegal townland.
- Parish registers: the National Library of Ireland's Catholic parish registers cover the Donegal parishes where most O'Boyle families worshipped.
- Place names: logainm.ie gives the Irish form and location of townlands such as Crohyboyle and the parishes of Boylagh.
Fun Facts About the Boyle Name
A whole barony is named after the family: Boylagh in west Donegal, from Críoch Bhaoigheallach, "O'Boyle's country." The O'Boyles reached Boylagh only after the MacSweeneys took their older lands in the Three Tuaths. Robert Boyle, of the unrelated Cork line, was the fourteenth child of the Great Earl and gave science Boyle's Law, learned by every chemistry student since. And the Donegal–Glasgow tie made Boyle one of the most familiar Irish names in Scotland, where it remains common today.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Irish Boyle Name
Is Boyle an Irish surname?
Yes. The Gaelic Ó Baoighill of Donegal was one of the principal families of Cenél Conaill, and most Irish Boyles descend from it.
What does the Boyle name mean?
It means "descendant of Baoigheall," a personal name Woulfe reads as "vain pledge," built on geall, a pledge.
Are Boyle and O'Boyle the same name?
Yes. Both come from Ó Baoighill; Boyle simply dropped the O', and it is now by far the more common spelling.
Where in Ireland are Boyles from?
County Donegal above all, where the barony of Boylagh is named for them, with strong numbers in Mayo and Antrim.
Was Robert Boyle the chemist one of the Donegal Boyles?
No. He was born at Lismore Castle in 1627 into the English-origin family of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, a line unrelated to the Gaelic Boyles of Donegal.
Is Boyle Irish or Scottish?
Both, by separate routes: the Gaelic Ó Baoighill of Donegal, and the Norman-Scottish Boyles of Kelburn, Earls of Glasgow. The Donegal–Glasgow emigrant link later brought the two communities side by side.
Bring a piece of this history home: our Boyle family gifts collection carries the Boyle and O'Boyle family crest on the Irish National Tartan across woven blankets, garden flags, ornaments, mugs and more.