Origin of the Name Toolan
The origin of the name
Toolan was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives. Variants of Toolan include Tolan and Toland. This name in Irish is O'Tuathlain and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. Akin to the Gaelic name that gives O'Toole, this name means 'people mighty'. This sept came from Ulster.
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.
Their homeland was the Barony of Tirhugh, County Donegal. They migrated to County Mayo like many other families who followed the O'Donnells, but some still remained as proved by the Hearth Money Rolls of 1665. They appear in the Book of Lecan as Cenel Tulan and in 1306 Petrus O'Tuathalain was Vicar of Killaspugbrone, in the Barony of Carbury. In modern times this name is mostly found in Counties Donegal and Mayo. In Achill the form Thulis is found.
The Toolan 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 Toolan descendants.