Origin of the Name Dunbar
The
Dunbar family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. The great Scottish family of Dunbar are descended from Gospatrick, who was the Earl of March in the year 1139. Crinan the Thane and Seneschal of the Isles was father of King Duncan I, and Maldred, whose son, Gospatrick, became Earl of March. His Earldom was taken away from him in 1072, by William the Conqueror. He sought refuge in Scotland and was given the Earldom of Dunbar by King Malcolm III. His descendant, Patrick, eighth Earl, was also Earl of March, and the ninth Earl married Agnes, daughter of Thomas Randolph, first Earl of Moray. She is renowned for her spirited defence of Dunbar Castle in 1338.
In Ireland this name and its variants were introduced into Ulster Province by settlers who arrived from England and Scotland , especially during the seventeenth century. It was the 'Plantations of Ireland ' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that marked the end of Gaelic supremacy in Ireland . While the influx of settlers in the wake of the earlier Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century resulted in a full integration into Irish society of the new arrivals, the same never occurred with the Ulster Planters who maintained their own distinct identity.
In modern times Dunbar is mostly associated with Counties Donegal and Fermanagh.
The Dunbar coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Dunbar descendants.