Duffy
also Ó Dubhthaigh
The dark one — erenagh family of the Clogher diocese.
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of Duffy
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to Duffy.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →What does the Duffy name mean?
From Ó Dubhthaigh — descendant of Dubhthach ('the dark one'). Multiple distinct Ó Dubhthaigh lines, the principal being the Monaghan-Tír Eoghain Ó Dubhthaigh (a learned ecclesiastical family of the diocese of Clogher), the Donegal Ó Dubhthaigh, and the Roscommon Ó Dubhthaigh of the Sliabh Bawn area. The hereditary office of erenagh (church-tenant) at the Clogher and Killala dioceses gave the Monaghan Ó Dubhthaigh a learned-clerical character that persisted through the high Middle Ages.
The history of Duffy
The Monaghan Ó Dubhthaigh were among the great 'church families' of mediaeval Ulster — hereditary erenaghs at the Clogher and Tydavnet sees — and produced an unusual concentration of bishops and ecclesiastical scholars in the 11th–13th centuries. The lineage was broken by the Plantation of Ulster but the surname remained densely planted in Monaghan, Tyrone and Fermanagh through every subsequent Ulster census, with diaspora carry into Glasgow, Liverpool and the Pennsylvania anthracite communities.
Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955), the Glasgow-born poet, was British Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019 — the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly LGBT person to hold the office. Patrick Duffy (b. 1949), the Townsend, Montana-born actor, played Bobby Ewing in Dallas across two long runs (1978–85, 1986–91). Hugh Duffy (1866–1954), the Cranston, Rhode Island-born baseball outfielder, holds the highest single-season batting average in Major League Baseball history (.440 in 1894) — a record unlikely to be broken.
Notable bearers of the Duffy name
- Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955) — British Poet Laureate 2009–2019
- Patrick Duffy (b. 1949) — actor (Dallas)
- Hugh Duffy (1866–1954) — baseball outfielder, .440 batting average 1894