Another Irish surname of possible interest

[Andrew Lancaster4]

I was in Dublin this week and noticed a surname (on a car dealership in Kildare) which I thought I'd add to our list of surnames possibly connected to Dunleavy, which is in turn the personal name behind MacLea. Dunlea. A quick look around the internet seems to show that it is associated with Cork and has variant spellings as you'd expect such as Dunlay and Dunley. I found no references connecting it to Dunsleibhe so maybe this is an illusion. Regards Andrew

[Canadian Livingstone]

Dunsliebhe is an ancient name in use and in the records of the Celtic clergy in both Ireland and in Scotland. Much like Drumsliebhe became Drumlea or Drumlee our ancient name Dunsliebhe in time became Dunslea or variations. Sliebhe meaning mountain. Depending on how you intrepret the word Dun or spell it Dunsliebhe could mean brown mountain or mountain fort which were everywhere in the ancient celtic world of Ireland and Scotland. But there are of course other intrepretations of Dunsliebhe. Our Irish cousins or not cousins who went with the name Dunsliebhe seem to favour Dunleavy for example. There are Irish examples of Dunsliebhe in the Annals of Ulster I believe or one those medievil texts. My own ancestor given name Miles can be found in its ancient equivalent Maelmoire also both among the clergy in Ireland and Scotland in the medievil period of the celtic church.

[Kyle2 MacLea]

I think it's worth keeping this as a variant name, although its origins may turn out to be different.

[Canadian Livingstone]

As Niall has pointed out there is more than one family group in old Ireland that derived their name from a Donnsliebhe. We know of at least two possible ancient origins that are well documented

[Andrew Lancaster4]

Yes Kyle One of the practical things about DNA projects is that if there is no project currently existing, then it is in our own interests to help the Irish Dunleavys become involved in genetic genealogy, even if the eventual outcome is that we never find any evidence for any links and perhaps they even split off to form a separate project. DNA projects thrive better when linked in to the biggest possible community with the biggest possible momentum. Best Regards Andrew

[Kyle2 MacLea]

Exactly what I was thinking, Andrew!