O'Connell, and Connell without the prefix, is the anglicized form of the Irish Ó Conaill, “descendant of Conall.” Its best-known family belongs to County Kerry: chiefs in the barony of Magunihy until the eleventh century, then hereditary castellans of Ballycarbery near Cahersiveen under MacCarthy Mór, and later the Derrynane family that raised Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator. From the coaster set to the woven throw, the O'Connell and Connell designs live in our O'Connell & Connell Irish family gifts collection.
Quick answer: O'Connell comes from Ó Conaill, built on the ancient personal name Conall, which Woulfe glosses as “high-powerful.” Woulfe records three separate families of the name, in Derry, south Galway and Kerry. The Kerry O'Connells are the famous line: pushed out of east Kerry by the O’Donoghues, they became castellans of Ballycarbery for MacCarthy Mór, and their Derrynane branch produced Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847), who won Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Connell is the same name: in 1890 most births of the name were recorded as Connell, but by 1996 the great majority of Irish households used O'Connell.
What Does the Name O'Connell Mean?
The Irish surname is Ó Conaill, and for a woman Ní Chonaill. Ó means “descendant,” so the name marks a family descended from a man called Conall. In his Irish Names and Surnames, Rev. Patrick Woulfe explains Conall as “high-powerful,” an ancient personal name with early relatives in Welsh (Cynvall) and British (Cunovalos). John Grenham’s surname notes give a second reading, probably from con, “hound,” and gal, “valor,” call Conall a very popular personal name, and note that the surname arose separately in Connacht, Ulster and Munster.
The English forms are O'Connell and Connell, and the two have traded places over time. Grenham found that almost 60% of births of the name in 1890 were recorded as Connell, while by 1996 only 12% of Irish households used that spelling. A family that is O'Connell today can easily appear as Connell on a great-grandparent’s birth or marriage record.
Where Did the O'Connell Family Come From?
The Kerry O'Connells were anciently chiefs of Magh O gCoinchin, the district now called the barony of Magunihy (Maigh gCoinchinn) in east Kerry. Woulfe says they held it until the O’Donoghues dispossessed them about the middle of the eleventh century. The family’s later seat lay in the southwest of the county, on the Iveragh peninsula (Uíbh Ráthach), the mountainous finger of land between Dingle Bay and the Kenmare River.
From the Anglo-Norman invasion to the seventeenth century, Woulfe writes, “the O'Connells were followers of MacCarthy More and hereditary castellans of Ballycarbery, near Caherciveen.” That was a position of trust rather than a lordship of their own: the MacCarthy Mór was their overlord, and the O'Connells kept his castle at Ballycarbery, beside Cahersiveen (Cathair Saidhbhín). The Cromwellian conquest broke the arrangement. Maurice O'Connell, head of the family in Cromwell’s time, was transplanted to Brentir, near Lisdoonvarna in County Clare. Other branches remained on the Iveragh peninsula, and many of the name served abroad: Woulfe notes that several O'Connells rose to prominence in the Irish Brigades in the service of France.
The best-documented branch is the family of Derrynane, whose house (Tigh Mór Dhoire Fhíonáin, Derrynane House) stands on the coast south of Cahersiveen in the parish of Kilcrohane. The Dictionary of Irish Biography calls Maurice “Hunting-cap” O'Connell (1728–1825) “one of a long line of old Irish gentry.” He became head of the family after 1751, raised its economic and social position on the peninsula, and ran a smuggling trade with his brother Morgan; in 1782 a revenue inspector was beaten in an incident involving both brothers, and the case against them was dismissed at the Tralee assizes. Another brother, Daniel Charles O'Connell (1745–1833), was born at Derrynane, joined the French army as a cadet in 1760, served as a captain in Clare’s Irish brigade from 1769, rose to lieutenant-general and was made a count. The Liberator’s aunt, Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill of Derrynane, composed Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, the Irish lament for her husband Art Ó Laoghaire, who was shot in 1773.
Who Was Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator?
Daniel O'Connell was born on August 6, 1775, at Carhen, near Cahersiveen, the eldest son of a younger brother of Hunting-cap. His uncle adopted him, raised him at Derrynane and made him his heir. Irish was his mother tongue. He was schooled at Saint-Omer and Douai in France, studied law at Lincoln’s Inn in London and the King’s Inns in Dublin, and was called to the Irish bar on May 19, 1798. When Hunting-cap died in 1825, Daniel inherited Derrynane and the income that paid for his political career.
In 1823 he founded the Catholic Association, financed by a “Catholic rent” of a penny a month that let even the poorest Catholics subscribe. In July 1828 he won the County Clare by-election although, as a Catholic, he could not take the seat, and the Catholic Relief Act followed in April 1829. His campaign to repeal the Union filled the monster meetings of 1843, among them the Hill of Tara on August 15; when troops occupied the site of the Clontarf meeting called for October 8, 1843, he canceled it. He was imprisoned in 1844 and freed after three months when the charges were quashed on appeal. He died at Genoa on May 15, 1847; his heart was buried at Sant’Agata dei Goti, then the chapel of the Irish College in Rome, and his body at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin. His full story is in our feature on Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator.
The Liberator made the name famous, but he is not the ancestor of every O'Connell. The surname was carried by many Kerry households long before his birth and by unrelated families in Derry and Galway, so a family’s own parish, townland and civil records, not the surname, show whether its line reaches Derrynane.
Is Every O'Connell or Connell From Kerry?
No. Woulfe names three separate Ó Conaill families. One, in Derry, was a branch of the Oirghialla whose chiefs were anciently lords of Uí Mac Carthainn, now the barony of Tirkeeran (Tír Mhic Caoirthinn). Another, a branch of the Uí Maine, held a territory in the south of County Galway between the river Grian and the borders of Thomond. The third is the Kerry family. Grenham likewise traces the surname to Connacht, Ulster and Munster, with the Munster line the most prominent.
Connell is usually the same Ó Conaill name without the prefix. The exception is Ulster: Grenham notes that in Antrim, Tyrone and Down many Connells and MacConnells are of Scottish stock, from Mac Dhomhnaill, the MacDonald name, which is the story told in our McConnell history. Woulfe’s Mac Conaill, “son of Conall,” gives MacConnell rather than Connell and is very rare. Connellan and Connolly are different surnames with their own histories: see our Connellan and Connolly articles.
Where Is the O'Connell Name Found Today?
Grenham reports that most Irish O'Connells still live in County Kerry and in neighboring County Cork, and that the O'Connell spelling now far outnumbers Connell in Irish households. The Clare connection has a documented start in the Cromwellian transplantation of the family’s head to Brentir near Lisdoonvarna. In Dublin the name is fixed on the capital’s main street, the former Sackville Street, renamed O'Connell Street in the Liberator’s honor. For Kerry names that shared the O'Connells’ county, see our guide to Irish surnames from County Kerry.
How Can I Research O'Connell and Connell Ancestors?
- IrishGenealogy.ie: civil births, marriages and deaths, plus church registers for Kerry and several other dioceses. Search Connell as well as O'Connell.
- National Archives of Ireland 1901 and 1911 census: compare Kerry and Cork households, and note which spelling each family gave the enumerator.
- Griffith’s Valuation: mid-nineteenth-century landholders, useful for placing a family in an Iveragh or Magunihy townland.
- National Library of Ireland Catholic parish registers: baptisms and marriages, many before civil registration began in 1864.
- PRONI: for Connell and O'Connell families in Antrim, Tyrone, Down and Derry.
- logainm.ie: the Irish and English forms of townlands, parishes and baronies such as Magunihy, Iveragh and Kilcrohane.
Check Ó Conaill and Ní Chonaill in Irish-language records, and both Connell and O'Connell in English ones, since clerks wrote the name the way the family gave it.
Notable Irish Bearers of the O'Connell Name
- Maurice “Hunting-cap” O'Connell (1728–1825), head of the Derrynane family, smuggler, landlord and the Liberator’s guardian.
- Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill (c. 1743–c. 1800), born at Derrynane, poet of Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, the lament for her husband, Art Ó Laoghaire.
- Count Daniel Charles O'Connell (1745–1833), born at Derrynane, lieutenant-general in the French army.
- Daniel O'Connell (1775–1847), the Liberator, founder of the Catholic Association and leader of the campaigns for Catholic Emancipation and Repeal.
- Mick O'Connell (born 1937), of Valentia Island, who played for Kerry from 1956 to 1974, captained the 1959 All-Ireland winners and won further All-Ireland medals in 1962, 1969 and 1970.
Stories Behind the O'Connell Name
In 1845 the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass heard Daniel O'Connell speak against slavery at Conciliation Hall in Dublin. O'Connell refused money from slaveholders and declared in 1829 that he would not set foot in an America tarnished by slavery. At Derrynane House, now within the 120-hectare Derrynane National Historic Park, visitors can see the triumphal chariot presented to him by the citizens of Dublin in 1844 and the bed in which he died three years later. There is a darker story too: on February 2, 1815, at Bishopscourt in County Kildare, O'Connell mortally wounded John D’Esterre in a duel, and for more than thirty years afterward he paid an allowance to D’Esterre’s family. After a religious conversion he vowed never to fight again.
Frequently Asked Questions About the O'Connell Name
What is O'Connell in Irish?
Ó Conaill for a man and Ní Chonaill for a woman: “descendant of Conall.”
What does the name Conall mean?
Woulfe glosses it as “high-powerful.” Grenham suggests it comes from con, “hound,” and gal, “valor.”
Is Connell the same name as O'Connell?
Usually, yes. Both come from Ó Conaill, and many Irish families moved from Connell back to O'Connell over the twentieth century. In Antrim, Tyrone and Down some Connells are of Scottish origin instead.
Were the O'Connells lords of Iveragh?
No. They were followers of MacCarthy Mór and the hereditary castellans of his castle at Ballycarbery, near Cahersiveen; earlier they were chiefs in Magunihy in east Kerry.
Are all O'Connells related to Daniel O'Connell?
No. He belonged to the Derrynane branch. The surname was widespread in Kerry before him, and separate O'Connell families lived in Derry and Galway.
Which county do the O'Connells come from?
Kerry above all, from Magunihy in the east to Ballycarbery and Derrynane in the southwest. Most Irish O'Connells today live in Kerry and Cork.
Carry the Ballycarbery and Derrynane story home from our O'Connell and Connell family gift collection, where the crest sits against the Irish National Tartan on everything from the woven cotton blanket to the House of O'Connell garden flag.