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EARLY, O'Mulmohery
The Irish surname Ó Maolmocheirghe was phonetically so anglicized at first, then abbreviated to Mulmoher. There no entry in the birth indices for the three years 1864 to 1866 for O'Mulmohery or Mulmoher. The substitution of Early and Earley for these by a kind of translation moch means early and éirghe rising - took place during the period of Gaelic submergence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
An ecclesiastical family, they were coarbs of Drumlane, Co. Cavan, and of Drumreilly, Co. Leitrim. The Four Masters mention a bishop of Breffny (Kilmore) and an abbot of Kells (Co. Meath) in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries whose name in O'Donovan's translation is given as O’Mulmoghery. In the Composition Book of Connacht (1585) it is O'Mulmoher: the important family so called was seated in Co. Leitrim, which modern statistics show is the main homeland of the Earlys today. In the acobite attainders of Co. Leitrim the name is spelt Mulvogherry. A branch of the sept was also established in Co. Donegal: in 1659 there were several families of O'Mulmoghery in the baronies of Banagh and Boylagh (west Donegal) and there are priests of the name, in one form or another, in the records of the diocese of Raphoe. The Prior of Kells (Co. Kilkenny) in 1361 was Robert Erley and as early as 1305 the place-name Erleystown in Co. Tipperary is on record. At that time the use of Early as an anglicized form of a Gaelic surname was unknown and the Erleys of Kilkenny and Tipperary were of Norman origin, as is evident from the fact that they were often called d'Erley.
Dr. John Early S.J. (1814-1874) foundcrof St. Ignatius College, Worcester, Mass., was of the O'Mulmohery sept.
It seems that O'Mulmoghery was first abbreviated to O'Mohery in Co. Armagh then"translated" as Fields, from the mistaken belief that Moghery represented the Irish word machaire, a plain field. The form O'Mulmohery,