Search more than 2,000 Scottish, Irish and Welsh family names.
Boyle and O'Boyle come from the Gaelic Ó Baoighill, a Donegal family whose country is still on the map as the barony of Boylagh. This collection puts the Boyle and O'Boyle family crest on the Irish National Tartan across blankets, flags, mugs, pennants, ornaments and more, for families with roots on the Donegal coast.
Boyle and O'Boyle are the English forms of the Gaelic Ó Baoighill, written Ó Baoill in modern Irish and meaning "descendant of Baoigheall," a personal name built on geall, a pledge. The two spellings are one family name, and this collection carries both: Boyle on most pieces, O'Boyle on a mug, a wall pennant and the House of O'Boyle garden flag.
The O'Boyles were one of the principal families of Cenél Conaill in Donegal, of the same stock as the O'Donnells and O'Dohertys and a leading sept in the O'Donnell lordship of Tír Chonaill. First chiefs of the Three Tuaths in the north-west of the county, they moved west when the MacSweeneys took those lands, and their new territory became Críoch Bhaoigheallach, the barony of Boylagh, taking in the Rosses, Lettermacaward, Inishkeel and Killybegs Lower. Niall O'Boyle was bishop of Raphoe from 1591 until his death in 1611 and was buried at Inishkeel, in the heart of that country. Boyle is still the third most common surname in Donegal, and emigration carried it to Glasgow, America and Australia.
The Boyle family crest appears on the Irish National Tartan across a woven cotton blanket and a lighter printed throw, garden flags, wall pennants, accent mugs, a cork coaster set and two Christmas ornaments, one round ceramic and one framed. A crest T-shirt in Irish Green or Black and a novelty license plate on the Irish flag round out the range.
The whole story of Ó Baoighill, from the Three Tuaths to Boylagh and beyond, is in our Boyle Irish surname history.
