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(Mac) PHILBIN
A Connacht name borne almost exclusively by families belonging to Co. Mayo or adjacent parts of Galway and Sligo. In the Composition Book of Connacht (1585) Clanphilbin is described as a sept of Burrishoole and its head as Chief of the Name: long before that, though not of Gaelic origin, they had become completely hibernicized and were reckoned by the annalists as a sept. In a note to the Annals of the Four Masters (1355) O'Donovan remarks that MacPhilbin was one of the chiefs of Sil Anmchadha, and was of Burke ancentry. MacPhilbin lived at Doon Castle, four miles from Westport.
When English came to be used in the records, e.g. the Fiants of the sixteenth century, MacPhilbin was often written MacPhilip and transition to the English surname Philips was inevitable in the period of Gaelic and Catholic submergence. In 1635,Strafford's Inquisition found MacPhilbin one of thet most numerous surnames in Co. Mayo, the synonym MacPhilip only occured three times in that document. MacPhilip appeared in the "census" of 1659 as a principal name in several counties besides Mayo (where the form MacPhilbin is not mentioned); but this may elsewhere be regarded as one of the many ephemeral surnames formed from the father's Christian name and seldom hereditary: in Co. Tipperary it is given as an alias of Fitzphilip.
Philip Phillips (d. 1787), Bishop of Achonry and later Archbishop of Tuam, was a MacPhilbin, as were the three Philips officers in James 11's Irish army. There are four people called Philips or Phillips in Crone's Concise Dictionary of Irish Biography, of whom only Judge Charles Phillips (1786-1859) would seem to be of MacPhillbin origin. Dr. William Philbin is the present Bishop of Down and Connor.