Surname Variants

Hurley — a mistranslation rejected by MacLysaght

The practice of recording Ó Comáin families as "Hurley" in parish and civil records predates any scholarly explanation — it appears in early 19th century records, with families emigrating to Liverpool and beyond already carrying the "Hurley" surname as a result of how priests had recorded the name. Patrick Woulfe (1923) later attempted to explain this by claiming the name derived from cam (crooked), implying a link to camán (a hurling stick) — but this was a rationalisation after the fact, and for some families the name Hurley had already stuck across generations.

Edward MacLysaght, the first Chief Herald of Ireland, explicitly rejected this in The Surnames of Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 1985, pp.52–53):

"Ó Comáin has become Hurley in some parts of Cos. Clare and Cork, due to the mistaken belief that it derives from camán, a hurley. Woulfe says it is from cam, crooked, which is equally unacceptable."

The practical result was documented by Robert E. Matheson, Ireland's Registrar-General, in his 1909 book on Irish surnames — cited by Frank McNally in The Irish Times: "in the middle of a marriage certificate, there would appear such a name as Mary Hurley, while the signature would appear as Mary Commane, the latter being the Irish for hurley stick." Matheson termed this a case of "pseudo-translation" — where a name was replaced not by its real meaning but by a mistaken one.

Read: Frank McNally, 'Synonyms of the Fathers' — The Irish Times ↗

Munster origin — and Comyn as the Clare anglicisation

MacLysaght's full entry in The Surnames of Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 1985, pp.52–53) for Commane / Commons:

"(O) Commane, Commons — Ó Comáin (in Munster) and Ó Cuimín (in Connacht). Usually called Commons in Co. Wexford and Cummins in Co. Cork. Ó Comáin has become Hurley in some parts of Cos. Clare and Cork, due to the mistaken belief that it derives from camán, a hurley. Woulfe says it is from cam, crooked, which is equally unacceptable."

MacLysaght establishes the geographic origin (Munster) and the principal regional anglicisations: Commons in Wexford, Cummins in Cork, with the Hurley pseudo-translation prevailing in parts of Clare and Cork. The very next entry in his alphabetical listing — placed immediately after Commane/Commons and explicitly cross-referenced back to it ("see previous entry") — is Comyn, where he gives the Clare-specific point that gives this Gaelic line its anglicised form in the documentary record.

MacLysaght's Comyn entry, the next entry in the same volume:

"Comyn — The name of a Norman-Irish family which is also used in Co. Clare as the anglicized form of Ó Cuimín."

This is a crucial scholarly correction. Comyn families have an illustrious history in Clare, and many such pedigrees have historically been treated as Norman-descended on the basis of name alone. MacLysaght's reading — followed by Y-DNA evidence in the modern Ó Comáin line confirming a deep Irish patrilineal cluster — establishes that Comyn in Clare also represents a Gaelic family. The name carries a continuity that runs back to Ó Comáin in Munster and Ó Cuimín in Connacht, not solely to the Norman Comyn line of de Comines.

Ó Cuimín is best read as a regional Gaelic variant of the underlying Munster form Ó Comáin rather than a separate name — the Connacht variant retained in the western and northern dialects, while the Munster form prevailed in the south. Before the standardisation of modern Irish orthography in the mid-20th century — most fully expressed in the Caighdeán Oifigiúil of 1958 — Irish surnames appeared in many spelling variations across both Gaelic and anglicised forms. The same underlying name was recorded as Ó Comáin, Ó Coimín, Ó Cuimín, Ó Comhán and other variants in Gaelic sources, and as Coman, Comaine, Cummane, Comyn, Cummins, Commons and dozens more in English-language records. Ó Comáin is the modern standardised form that has prevailed since.

Norman influence

After the 12th-century Anglo-Norman invasion, the Norman name Comyn (originally de Comines, from Flanders) became established in Ireland — most notably with John Comyn, first Anglo-Norman Archbishop of Dublin (1182–1213). For Gaelic families bearing a name like Ó Comáin, the phonetic similarity opened a strategic choice. Under Dalcassian and later Anglo-Norman rule in Clare, a dispossessed Gaelic family could find business, legal and social advantage in being known as Comyn in English-speaking contexts — a recognised armigerous Norman name — while retaining the Gaelic form privately. Over centuries this produced the centuries of confusion between two entirely separate underlying families: a Norman Comyn line of Flemish origin, and a Gaelic Ó Comáin line operating under the same anglicised spelling.

British rule and the Penal Laws

English administrators and census officials often altered Irish names, either intentionally or due to phonetic misunderstandings. The Penal Laws created sustained pressure on Catholic Gaelic families to anglicise — to access education, hold property, enter the professions, or simply to be left in peace by the authorities. Many families anglicised differently in different parishes, producing the regional variations that survive in records today: Commane in one parish register, Cummins in another, Comyn in a third — all from the same underlying Gaelic line.

Emigration and the diaspora

As Ó Comáin descendants emigrated — to England, Scotland and Wales, and to America, Canada and Australia during and after the Great Famine of the 1840s, with Hurley-recorded families notably among those reaching Liverpool — names were further modified to fit English-language conventions. Port officials, census enumerators and employers often recorded the name as they heard it, creating new local variants that took root in each destination country.

The name in the landscape

Despite centuries of anglicisation in the documentary record, the name survived in the Irish landscape itself — preserved in the place-names that the Gaelic-speaking population continued to use. Most significantly: Cahercommane (Cathair Commáin — "Fort of Commán") in the Burren, Tullycommon (Tulach Commáin — "Mound of Commán") in Clare, and Na Comáin townland in the Iveragh barony of Kerry. The land remembered what the parish registers had recorded under different spellings.