Origin of the Name Mulrooney
The origin of the name
Mulrooney 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 Mulrooney
include Mulroonie, Rooney, Roonie, O'Moroney and Moroney. This name is taken from the Gaelic sept O'Maolruanaidh, meaning 'follower of Ruanaidh'. There were several septs of the name in mediaeval times, one of them being of County Fermanagh where they were very powerful before the rise of the MacGuires, and still survive there in small numbers today.
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.
The name Mulrooney has also become Moroney especially in County Galway in the west part of Ireland . In the western Counties of Ulster Province the name Rooney is also often used as an abbreviated form of Mulrooney.
The Mulrooney 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 Mulrooney descendants.