It is a help when tracing your Irish family history to know something about the origin of and evolution of Irish names and particularly how names have changed over the centuries.

Early times: In ancient Ireland the population was much smaller than today and the mass movement of people was uncommon. It was usual therefore for a person to be known only by one name: Niall, Eoin, Art, etc. Once there was no one else in the locality with the same name then this was not a problem.

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