The History of

the Mulvihill Name

O'Mulvihil is the anglicized form of O Maoil Mhicil, the eponymous ancestor being so called on account of his devotion to St. Michael. The sept was of some importance in mediaeval times, being of the same stock as the MacBrannans, and located with them on the west bank of the Shannon in the modern county of Roscommon; both were styled chiefs of Corca Sheachlainn, or Corcachlann. O'Mulvihil and MacBrannan are eulogized together in O'Dugan's famous "Topographical Poem", written in the fourteenth century, but the O'Mulvihils disappear from history at an early date - the last to find a place in the "Annals of the Four Masters" being Gillananaev O'Mulvihil, who was one of the leading men responsible for the assassination of the son and heir of the King fo Connacht in 1189. In the census of 1659 the O'Mulvihils are recorded among the most numerous families of Co. Longford. In modern times the representatives of this sept are scattered, being found in places so widely separated as Kerry, Donegal and Wicklow, but nowhere in large numbers. The arms illustrated in Plate XXII are those of the chief representative of the sept in 1874, who was then seated at Knockanira, Co. Clare. The family acquired that property in 1712 from the Earl of Thomond. Doon, formerly Doonmulvihil, is a place in the civil parish of Inchicronan near Ennis, which indicates that the Mulvihil family of Knockanira, just referred to, were established in Co. Clare. In some places the name Mulvihil has been anglicized Mitchell, and in other Melville. Sir Henry Blackall reminds me that the Mulvihils of Knockanira, Co. Clare, altered their name to Mulville. There are pedigrees of this family in the Genealogical Office.