Kelly
also O'Kelly, Ó Ceallaigh
Second most common Irish surname — the Uí Maine of Galway, and six other dynasties besides.
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The seat of Kelly
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Stake your name →What does the Kelly name mean?
Anglicised from Ó Ceallaigh — descendant of Ceallach. Ceallach is an Old Irish personal name often glossed as 'bright-headed' or 'frequenter of churches', though the etymology is contested. At least seven distinct Ó Ceallaigh kindreds gave rise to the modern Kellys, the principal one being the Uí Maine of east Galway and south Roscommon. The Anglicised form Kelly displaced the Gaelic by the 18th century; the older O'Kelly form persists in family-name register but is less commonly written.
The history of Kelly
Kelly is the second most common surname in Ireland, after Murphy. The largest of the seven historic Ó Ceallaigh kindreds was the Uí Maine, lords of a kingdom that stretched from the eastern shore of Lough Ree across south Roscommon and east Galway — a territory roughly the size of Connacht's eastern half. They held it under the high kings of Connacht for six hundred years, from the 6th-century descent from Maine Mór to the Cromwellian dispossession of 1652.
William Buidhe Ó Ceallaigh, 14th-century lord of Uí Maine, is remembered for the great Christmas feast of 1351 at his castle of Galey on Lough Ree — the largest gathering of Gaelic poets, harpers and historians in the medieval Irish record, attended by men from every part of Ireland and lasting through the twelve days. The phrase 'fáilte Uí Cheallaigh' — the welcome of the O'Kellys — entered the Irish language as a synonym for the most generous hospitality.
Grace Kelly (1929–1982), born in Philadelphia to a family of Mayo-Kelly descent and crowned Princess of Monaco in 1956, is the most internationally famous Kelly. Gene Kelly (1912–1996), the dancer; Ned Kelly (1854–1880), the bushranger of Australian Tipperary descent; Captain Edward Kelly VC of the Boer War; Petra Kelly the German Green leader (descended from a Bavarian-Kelly line of Irish emigration) — all from the same broad Ó Ceallaigh surname pool that began on the eastern shore of the Shannon a thousand years ago.
Notable bearers of the Kelly name
- William Buidhe Ó Ceallaigh — 14th-c. lord of Uí Maine, host of the great 1351 feast
- Grace Kelly (1929–1982) — actress, Princess of Monaco
- Ned Kelly (1854–1880) — Australian bushranger of Tipperary-Kelly descent
- Gene Kelly (1912–1996) — dancer, choreographer