Irish surname search
(Mac)Elroy, (Mac)Gilroy, Kilroy
This name is Mac Giolla Rua in Irish, I.e. son of the red (haired) youth. The sept originated in Co. Fermanagh where the place name Ballymackilroy is found: their territory was on the east side of Lough Erne. There is another Ballymackilroy in Tyrone and a Ballymacilroy in Co.. Antrim. In the seventeenth century census (1659) the name is recorded as very numerous in Co. Fermanagh and also in Co. Leitrim - the latter as MacGilleroy. It is still numerous in the same areas, but in Connacht the modern spelling is often Kilroy or Gilroy without the Mac. The form Kilroy is occasionally used as an anglicized form of the name MacGiolla Riabhaigh, which has many synonyms in English - MacAreavy, Gallery, Gray etc. In the town of Roscommon and its vicinity Kilroy takes the form Kilroe, which is a truer anglicization of Mac Giolla Ruaidy (ruadh, red).
The MacElroys were of some importance in Gaelic Ireland, particularly in the fifteenth century, as their frequent mention in the "Annals of the Four Masters", "Loch Ce" etc., testifies. For notable persons of the name in modern times we must turn to America. Rev. John MacElroy, S.J. (1782-1877), a native of Co. Fermanagh, where he was educated at a hedge school and was associated with the United Irishmen in 1798, was famous in the U.S.A. as a missionary priest and church builder. Dr. Robert MacElroy (b. 1872), was a distinguished professor of history at Princeton and also at Oxford University. Norman Thomas Gilroy, Archbishop of Sydney, created a cardinal in 1946, the first native born Australian to be so honoured, came of a family which emigrated from Ireland. Birth registration statistics 1864-1890 indicate that the name was mainly associated with north Connacht.