McCormick Irish Surname: History, Origins & Heritage of an Ulster Name

McCormick Irish family crest woven blanket on the Irish National Tartan

McCormick is an anglicized form of the Irish Mac Cormaic, “son of Cormac,” and it is the spelling the name took in the north of Ireland. When the birth indexes for 1890 were analyzed, McCormick was principally found in Antrim, Dublin and Down, and nearly two of every three McCormick births were registered in Ulster. Every McCormick design, from the woven blanket to the garden flag, is gathered in our McCormick Irish family gifts collection.

Quick answer: McCormick comes from Mac Cormaic, son of Cormac, a surname Rev. Patrick Woulfe found in every part of Ireland. The McCormick spelling belongs above all to Ulster: County Antrim held about a third of Ireland’s McCormicks in the 1911 census, followed by Down, Tyrone and Donegal. It shares its Irish form with McCormack, which was spread more evenly across the four provinces. In the north the name was carried by Catholic and Presbyterian families alike, it has a separate history in Scotland, and one Presbyterian line from County Londonderry and County Antrim produced the American inventor Cyrus McCormick.

What Does the McCormick Surname Mean?

Rev. Patrick Woulfe’s Irish Names and Surnames (1923) files McCormick under Mac Cormaic, “son of Cormac,” and lists its English forms side by side: MacCormac, MacCormack, MacCormick, Cormac, Cormick and Cormack. The root is the personal name Cormac, which Woulfe calls “an ancient and very common Irish personal name.” A surname built on a first name that popular did not stay with one household, and Woulfe describes Mac Cormaic as “a common surname in all parts of Ireland.”

That shapes how a McCormick line should be traced. Some Irish surnames lead back to one Gaelic lordship and one ruling family. Woulfe gives Mac Cormaic no single founder, chief or territory, and none is claimed here. The story of any particular McCormick family sits in its own parish, townland and church records, and the first clue is usually the spelling itself.

Why Is McCormick an Ulster Spelling?

The i in McCormick is a northern habit. Robert E. Matheson’s Special Report on Surnames in Ireland, which draws on the birth indexes for 1890, found 164 entries under the McCormick spelling that year. Of the 165 McCormick births counted with their variant spellings, 107 were registered in Ulster, 40 in Leinster, 16 in Connacht and only 2 in Munster, and the counties where the name was principally found were Antrim, Dublin and Down.

The same report shows how differently the two main spellings of Mac Cormaic had settled. McCormack had 118 births that year, spread through every province: 48 in Leinster, 28 in Connacht, 22 in Munster and only 20 in Ulster, and Matheson found it “in nearly every county,” chiefly Dublin, Mayo, Roscommon and Limerick. One Irish name, two regional habits: in Ulster the register usually read McCormick, and in the other three provinces McCormack was the more frequent spelling.

The 1911 census tells the same story. A county-by-county tabulation of the 1911 returns by IrishHistory.com counts 3,956 McCormicks in Ireland, 1,365 of them, or 34.5 percent, in County Antrim. Down followed with 777, then Tyrone with 234, Donegal with 228 and Dublin with 215.

Who Were the McCormicks of Antrim and Down?

The northern McCormicks were never one family. The same 1911 tabulation records their religion, and it shows a surname shared across the communities of Ulster: 53.6 percent of McCormicks were Roman Catholic, 22 percent Presbyterian, 17.3 percent Church of Ireland, 3.5 percent Methodist and 0.8 percent Unitarian. In the north, McCormick is a name held in common by Catholic and Protestant households rather than the mark of a single lineage.

The best-documented Presbyterian line is the one that left. Thomas McCormick (1702–1762), born in County Londonderry, married Elizabeth Carruth, born in County Antrim, in 1728, and in 1735 the couple settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. That account comes from the family record compiled by Leander J. McCormick in 1896, as summarized in the McCormick family entry on Wikipedia. Their grandson Robert McCormick Jr. was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1780 and became an inventor in his own right, and his son was Cyrus Hall McCormick.

Other traditions place the Virginia family’s Irish roots elsewhere. The County Tyrone heritage site CoTyroneIreland.com says Cyrus McCormick’s ancestors came from Ballygawley, County Tyrone, but it names no emigrant, date or record. The 1896 family record gives the birthplaces of both emigrants, and it points to Londonderry and Antrim.

Is McCormick an Irish or a Scottish Name?

Both, and the two histories are separate. In Ireland, McCormick is Mac Cormaic, a native Irish surname that Woulfe found in every province. In Scotland the name has its own story: Scottish sept lists place MacCormick and McCormick among the followers of the Maclaines of Lochbuie on the Isle of Mull. The spelling alone cannot tell an Irish Mac Cormaic line from a Scottish one; a family’s church, townland and earliest dated record can.

One tale should be set aside. Genealogy websites repeat a story of twelve McCormick men sent from Antrim by “the Earl of Antrim” around 1538 to restore a Maclaine chief to Moy Castle on Mull. It cannot be right as told, because the title Earl of Antrim was first created in 1620, for Randal MacDonnell, and no reliable record of the episode has come to light.

Is McCormick the Same Surname as McCormack?

In origin, yes. Woulfe lists McCormick and McCormack as English spellings of the same Mac Cormaic, with Cormick and Cormack as the shortened forms without Mac. In practice the spellings sorted themselves by region, as Matheson’s 1890 figures show, so the way a family writes the name is a useful hint about where in Ireland to start looking. Families who spell it with an a will find more in our McCormack surname history.

Where Were McCormick Families Found in Ireland?

Ulster first, and within Ulster the east. County Antrim (Aontroim) held the largest share in 1911, and County Down (An Dún) came second, together accounting for more than half of the country’s McCormicks. Smaller groups ran west into Tyrone and Donegal. Dublin was the one large center outside Ulster: Matheson lists it among the three principal McCormick counties in 1890, and the 1911 census counted 215 McCormicks there.

Munster barely registers. Only 2 of the 165 McCormick births in 1890 were in the southern province, so a McCormick family with firm Cork or Kerry roots is unusual, and a Munster family is more likely to appear in records as McCormack.

Cyrus McCormick: The Reaper and the Ulster Connection

Cyrus Hall McCormick was American, born on February 15, 1809, at Raphine, Virginia, and his Irish link runs through his great-grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth McCormick of Londonderry and Antrim. According to Wikipedia’s biography, he held one of his first demonstrations of mechanical reaping at Steeles Tavern, Virginia, in 1831 and received his patent for the reaper on June 21, 1834. He remained a devout Presbyterian all his life and died in Chicago on May 13, 1884. His McCormick Harvesting Machine Company became part of the International Harvester Company in 1902. The same family later produced Robert R. McCormick (1880–1955), publisher of the Chicago Tribune.

How Can I Research McCormick Family History?

Search Cormick, Cormack, McCormack and MacCormick as well as McCormick. Matheson’s own count of McCormick births includes entries registered under variant spellings, and a single family can move between them from one record to the next.

Notable Irish Bearers of the McCormick Name

  • Richard McCormick (d. 1827), a Dublin poplin manufacturer elected secretary of the Catholic Committee on 2 April 1789. He was active in the United Irishmen from about November 1791, sat on their national directory, and left for France on 20 February 1798, before the arrests of the other Dublin leaders. Wolfe Tone’s nickname for him was “Magog.”
  • F. J. McCormick (1890–1947), the stage name of Peter Christopher Judge, born at Skerries, County Dublin. He adopted it to keep his acting hidden from his employers and joined the Abbey company in April 1918. His Joxer Daly in Juno and the Paycock (1924) was considered a definitive characterization, and on screen he was praised as the vagrant Shell in Odd Man Out (1947).
  • Liam McCormick (1916–1996), born in Derry city, the architect of some twenty-seven churches, most of them in the northwest. His circular St Aengus Church at Burt, County Donegal (1965–67), inspired by the nearby Grianán of Aileach hill-fort, won the RIAI gold medal, and Maurice Craig called him “the most original church architect of his time.”

Frequently Asked Questions About the McCormick Name

What is McCormick in Irish?

Mac Cormaic, meaning “son of Cormac.” The same Irish form stands behind McCormack, MacCormack, Cormick and Cormack.

Which Irish county is the McCormick name from?

County Antrim above all. In 1911 about a third of Ireland’s McCormicks lived there, with Down, Tyrone, Donegal and Dublin next.

Is McCormick Catholic or Protestant?

Both. In 1911 just over half of Irish McCormicks were Roman Catholic, and most of the rest were Presbyterian or Church of Ireland.

Was Cyrus McCormick Irish?

He was born in Virginia in 1809. His great-grandfather Thomas McCormick was born in County Londonderry and his great-grandmother Elizabeth Carruth in County Antrim; they settled in Pennsylvania in 1735.

Is McCormick a Scottish name too?

Yes. The name is found in Scotland, where MacCormick families are listed among the followers of the Maclaines of Lochbuie on Mull. In Ireland it is the native Mac Cormaic.

Sources and Further Reading

The Irish form and its English spellings come from Woulfe’s Mac Cormaic entry. The 1890 birth figures come from Matheson’s report entries for McCormick and McCormack, and the 1911 county and religion figures from IrishHistory.com’s tabulation of the 1911 census. The Dictionary of Irish Biography entries on Richard McCormick, F. J. McCormick and Liam McCormick supply the biographies above, and Wikipedia’s McCormick family article summarizes the 1896 family record of the Virginia McCormicks.

Carry the Antrim and Down spelling of Mac Cormaic into your own home with our McCormick crest designs on the Irish National Tartan, on a woven blanket, a morning mug or a flag by the front door.