McCloskey Irish Surname: History, Origins & Heritage of a Derry Family
The McCloskey surname is that rare and satisfying thing in Irish genealogy: a name with one home, one origin, and one family story. McCloskey is the anglicised form of the Gaelic Mac Bhloscaidh, son of Bloscadh, and virtually every family of the name on earth traces to a single district — the valley of the River Roe around Dungiven in County Derry. The family arose as a branch of the Ó Catháin — the O'Cahans, later O'Kanes — the ruling Gaelic lords of the territory between the Foyle and the Bann, who were themselves the premier sub-kings under the great O'Neills of Ulster. Tradition anchors the name to Bloscadh Ó Catháin, a twelfth-century member of the ruling house, whose descendants took his personal name as their surname. The personal name Bloscadh is connected to an Irish word suggesting a loud noise or blast — a fittingly forceful name for a warrior branch of a warrior dynasty. Even today the name remains extraordinarily concentrated: the parishes of Dungiven, Banagher, and the Roe Valley still hold more McCloskeys per square mile than anywhere else on the planet, while emigration has made America the name's second home.
Who Were the O'Cahans, the Parent Dynasty of the McCloskeys?
To understand the McCloskeys is to understand the O'Cahans, the lords of Ciannachta and Keenaght whose rule over the Roe and Faughan valleys lasted four centuries. The O'Cahans held the proud hereditary right of inaugurating the O'Neill — casting the golden sandal over the new chief's head at the crowning place of Tullaghoge — and their chief seat and burial place stood at Dungiven Priory, whose magnificent carved tomb of the chief Cooey na Gall Ó Catháin, who died in 1385, is among the finest medieval monuments in Ulster. The McCloskey branch served within this lordship as a leading sept of the Roe Valley, holding church lands and townlands around Dungiven and Banagher. When the Gaelic order collapsed after the Flight of the Earls in 1607 and the O'Cahan country was swept into the Plantation of Ulster as the new county of Londonderry, the McCloskeys — like most of the native population — stayed on the land as tenants of the incoming interests, keeping their name, their faith, and their parish loyalty through every century that followed. That endurance is why the name's concentration in its home valley remains so remarkable today.
Who Is the Most Celebrated Bearer of the McCloskey Name?
The name's greatest figure in the New World is John McCloskey (1810–1885), born in Brooklyn to emigrant parents from Dungiven itself, who rose to become Archbishop of New York and then, in 1875, the first American Cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church. It was Cardinal McCloskey who dedicated the completed St Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in 1879 — a Roe Valley name presiding over the greatest Catholic church in America. The name has flourished in American life ever since: Pete McCloskey served as a reforming Congressman from California and co-authored the landmark Endangered Species Act; Robert McCloskey wrote and illustrated Make Way for Ducklings, one of the most beloved American children's books ever published; and Jack McCloskey built the Detroit Pistons teams that won back-to-back NBA championships. In Ireland, the name is woven through the sporting, musical, and civic life of Derry, and the boxer John McCloskey of the Victorian era carried it into early American sporting legend.
What Is the McCloskey Heartland Like Today?
The Roe Valley is one of the most rewarding heritage destinations in Ulster. Dungiven Priory still stands above the river with the O'Cahan tomb in its chancel; the Banagher old church, founded according to tradition by Saint Muiredach Ó Heney, holds the famous sand said to bring luck to the families of the parish; and the Roe Valley Country Park preserves the wooded gorge where the lordship's watermills once ran. Any McCloskey family visiting Ireland should walk this valley — it is, in the most literal sense, the family's home ground. Researchers should work the Catholic parish registers of Dungiven, Banagher, and Maghera, the tithe and valuation records held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and the emigrant passenger lists of Derry city — the port through which most McCloskeys left for Philadelphia, New York, and Quebec during and after the Famine years.
Which Related Surnames Connect to McCloskey?
O'Kane — the modern form of Ó Catháin — is the parent stem of the McCloskey branch, and the two names share the Roe Valley to this day, along with the related Derry names McCloskey researchers meet constantly in the same registers: Bradley, McLaughlin, and Doherty, the great names of the north-west that filled the same emigrant ships from Derry quay. The variant spellings McCluskey and McClusky are the same Mac Bhloscaidh name as it settled in other counties and in Scotland, where emigrant families carried it to Glasgow and beyond.
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