Interpretations of the
surname Lucey
Lucey is the modern form of the old Gaelic
surname Ó Luasaigh.
This name can also derive from the Norman surname De Lucy which was prominent
in Ireland during the fourteenth century. The De Lucys were a leading Norman
family who settled in Ireland in the wake of the Anglo-Norman invasion of
1170. One Anthony de Lucy was Chief Justiciar of the country in 1332. The
first recorded instance of the name occurs in 1305; the Gormanston Register
lists a family of this name as living in Carlingford in that year.
In medieval Ireland a sept named Ó Luasaigh were
powerful landowners and Gaelic chiefs. By the mid-sixteenth century this
name was usually anglicised to O'Lwosie - this subsequently became Lucey.
The Kinsale Presentments of 1712 lists the names O'Lwosie, Luasy and Lousy.
These were all forms of the name Lucey which were found in the southern county
of Cork. This document listed these families as the 'Popish inhabitants'
against whom execution was obtained. South-west Munster is almost exclusively
the present location for this name; 41 of the 42 birth registrations for
Lucey in the 1890 return were in Munster, 33 of these in county Cork. Similarly,
in 1865, 39 of 43 registrations for the name were in county Cork. In 1901
there were 42 families of Lucey or Lucy in county Kerry.
(Source: The Historical Research Center™)
Another interpretation
Seán Lucy MA - Professor
of Modern English and Head of the Department of English - University College
- Cork in 1975 states - "My own branch of the family originates in Ballingeary
and probably came there from Ballyvourney. My father, Lt-Col. J.F. Lucy,
OBE of the Royal Ulster Rifles, who ended his life as a town councillor of
Cork City, was very interested in the possible origins of the family."
He claimed that the Luceys were a cadet branch of the Norman
family, which came over to England with William the Conqueror. These de Lucys
settled in Warwickshire where the most notorious was the Sir Thomas Lucy
who had Shakespeare whipped, and also somewhere else in the south, I think
in Sussex or Surrey. According to my father's legend a young man of one of
these families had tried to settle somewhere in Clare or Limerick and had
been driven out by the de Burgos. He had come south and taken service with
the McCarthys.
Now this story, though romantic, is probably quite untrue.
For one thing it was very unusual for Normans to take service under Gaelic
kings or princes, and for another the prefix 'O' which is found in all early
records of the family, except where it is called 'Mac', is most unusual among
Norman families who usually, in Gaelic, take the 'De' as in de Burgo or de
Paor or other familiar names. The probability then is that the Luceys were
a branch or sept of the McCarthy clan, and that they were called Lucey by
Normans and English to whom their name sounded like Lucy.
The earliest records of the name which we have found are
in the time of Queen Elizabeth and relate to legal action taken against members
of the family for their part in McCarthy wars and rebellions. Here the form
of the name is found earliest MacLuasaigh and a little later as Ó Luasaigh.
I also have heard this name explained as deriving from the Irish for speedy
or fast, or as deriving from the word cluas - an ear, so that makes the Luceys
not only fast movers but spies - listeners for the McCarthys. I think that
these are unlikely derivations. It seems to me quite possible that my father's
story of the Luceys coming from somewhere north of Cork to take military
service with the McCarthys is an accurate family tradition. If this is so
they almost certainly came from the north of Ireland or from the Isles of
Scotland as the McSweeneys came. This would make them Scottish or north of
Ireland Gaelic and indeed I may also say that there is something a little
foreign or exotic in a Cork sense about the Luceys as a whole. Let me suppose
that they did come down as Gallowglasses with the McSweeneys at that time
to take service with the McCarthys. Then we are left with the interesting
task of trying to trace the name north. At this stage it seems to me quite
possible that the name is cognate or related to the name McCluskey which
is found in Limerick, Galway, Donegal and Scotland, and which is quite probably
a Gallowglass name.
What is certain is that the name goes back in west Cork
at least as far as the sixteenth century and has always been connected with
McCarthy lands and McCarthy fortunes. The usual Cork spelling is of course
LUCEY. If the name is Norman this is wrong. If it is Gaelic one takes ones
choice of two Anglicisations - neither or either is right. Most of my cousins
use the 'E'.
(Source: Letter of 14 November 1975)
Modified
16 December, 2008
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