Features: Irish Counties and Surnames

One would think, with the last name Wallace, that my ancestry would trace directly back to Scotland. It does, but it turns out that my Scottish ancestors were Trimbles/Turnbulls, Camerons and Spences. The main branch of my family tree is actually Irish. My earliest known Wallace ancestor, William Wallace (1764-1811) was born in County Antrim, Ireland, emigrated to Pennsylvania Colony, married one of Daniel Boone's many first cousins, and lived out the remainder of his life as a carpenter, miller, and farmer in Nicholas County, Kentucky.

There is a considerable crossover of surnames typically considered to be Scottish found in Irish censuses and immigration records, which is not surprising given the proximity of their coastlines; the west coast of Scotland and the northeast coast of Ireland are only twelve miles apart. In addition to my Wallace roots, I also have Barr, Bell, Garland, Houston, Malone, McClanahan, and two different lines of Murphy adding to my Scots-Irish heritage.

Discovering that I had so many ancestors from Ireland led to research about, and a love of, Irish tartans, particularly the district tartans designed by Polly Wittering for House of Edgar in 1997. These tartans are not officially recognized by the provinces and counties for which they are named.

Likewise, many of the surname or clan tartans for families in Ireland are not historic, but have become accepted and embraced by North Americans of Irish descent whose ancestors emigrated to Canada, the Thirteen Colonies, and later the States. Though tartan is inherently Scottish, today people of Irish ancestry see tartans as part of their Celtic heritage.

From 1717 to 1775, though scholarly estimates vary, the most common approximation is that 250,000 immigrants from Ireland emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. By 1790, approximately 400,000 people of Irish birth or ancestry lived in the United States, and from 1820 to 1860, almost two million Irish arrived, 75% of these during and after the Great Irish Famine of 1845–1852.

About 34 million Americans - over 10% of the total population- identify as being of Irish ancestry, making Irish the second-most common ancestry among Americans. According to an article published in The Washington Post in 2013, the Irish-American population is seven times larger than the population of Ireland.

Read more about each Irish province and county, and its most common emigrant surnames, by clicking on a tartan swatch below – or browse Irish Tartans to see tartans of surnames that appear in Irish censuses and U.S. immigration records.