MacKenna

Variations – McKenna, MacKinney, McKinney, Kinney
Racial Origin – Irish
Source – Given names

There are two forms of this name, or rather two separate names in Gaelic from which the anglicized family names in this group have been derived. It is unfortunate that in so many family names the Irish and the English forms should be so different as to cause confusion in the translation of the name from one language into the other.

Here is another case where you’d have some genealogical record to make sure whether your ancestors were members of that clan known as the “Maclonagh,” which played a vivid part in the wars of Irish rebellion in the early seventeenth century, or of the ancient “Clann Cionnotha.”

The early records of this latter clan are clear.  It was founded by a chieftain name Cinaoth (the meaning of the given name being “without servile work”) about the year 250 A.D., thus establishing this family name as about twice as old as the majority of English family names. The stronghold of this clan was in Tirowen.

The name Maclonaigh is derived from the given name “Ionach,” which means a “dirk.” It is not certain at just what point the clan was established but it was a branch of the ancient clan of the O’Harts, and it was well established in Ardmore, County Waterford, as well as in Dundalk and in Truagh, County Monoghan.