Origin of the Name Mullarkey
The
Mullarkey family history was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name Mullarkey
include Erck, Herrick and Mollarky. This name in Irish is O'Maoilearca and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this ancient sept name.
A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
This family came from Tirconnell which in common with several others from County Donegal migrated to Connacht in the wake of the O'Donnells in the seventeenth century. The name means 'descendant of a follower of Saint Earc', hence the variant form Erck. The name Herrick is a synonym of Erck. One of the leaders of the O'Neill-O'Cahan conspiracy against the Ulster Planters in the year 1615 was Edmond Mullarkey, the Provincial of the Irish Franciscans. The name occurs in the Donegal Hearth Money Rolls in the year 1665 as O'Harrick. John Caillard Erck, 1829-1900, was the editor of several famous Irish Historical documents.
The Mullarkey 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 Mullarkey descendants.