Blair Collection > Surnames & place-names of the Isle of Man

CHAPTER IV.
EXOTIC SURNAMES.
Under this head we include the Surnames which are
neither of Celtic nor of Scandinavian formation, but
have been introduced b}^ immigration subsequent to
the period of Norse domination. Amongst these the
first place in order of time belongs to the Hibernicised
Anglo-Norman Names.
' After the murder of the Great Earl of Ulster, William de Burgo,
the third Earl of that name, in 1333, and the consequent lessening
of the English power in Ireland, many, if not all the distinguished
Anglo-Norman families seated in Connaught and Munster became
Hibernicised — Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores — spoke the Irish lan-
guage, and assumed surnames like those of the Irish, by prefixing
Mac to the Christian names of their ancestors. . . . Thus the De
Burgos, in Connaught, assumed the name of MacWilliam. . . .
from these sprang many offsets ... as the MacGiebons, Mac-
Walters,'* etc.
Members of these families settled in the Isle of Man,
particularly in the south-western portion, and contracted
their names of MacWalter and MacWilliam into the
decidedly harsh Qualtrough and Quilliam.
* O'Donovan, Introduction.
pp. 21, 22.