McElroy

The
two commonest spellings of the name are McElroy and McIlroy.  It is both Irish and Scottish in origin.  The root in each case is the Gaelic Mac giolla Ruaidh, composed of the
elements Mac, meaning “son of,” giolla
being “youth”, and ruaidh being “red haired” – hence
“the son of the red haired youth.”  Some think that McElroy
is Irish in origin and McIroy Scottish in origin.

Select
McElroy Resources on
The
Internet

• Engineering A Family Legacy
  McElroys in Ireland and New York.
• McElroy Family History
  McElroys in Richmond, Ontario.
• McElroy DNA Project
  McElroy DNA.

Select
McElroy Ancestry

Scotland.
The
name McElroy was first found in the 14th century in Dumfriesshire as
Michael McGilrey a tenant in Thornhill.  Michael
McYliroye was the baillie of Ayr in 1500.
The name also cropped up in the parish of Ballantrae in
Ayrshire.  One
family line began with the marriage of Hugh and Esther McElroy in
Wigtown in
1712.

The proximity to Ireland meant some emigration there over the years,
either as plantation settlers in the 17th century or as soldiers to
fight for Cromwell
or later for William of Orange.  In Ireland their name seems to
have
become McIlroy.

Ireland.  MacElroy in Ireland originated at
Ballymacelroy on the east side of Lough Erne in county Fermanagh.
Ballymacelroy was also to be found in Tyrone and Antrim.
The name cropped up in the old Annals:

• in
  1476 the chief Donal died and
  was replaced by his son Brian
  
• and
  in 1492 Ballymacelroy was destroyed by the
  O’Neills.

The
spelling became Gilroy in Connacht.

In 1990 the McElroy/McIlroy
spellings were fairly evenly divided in Northern Ireland, 53% being
McElroy and
47% being McIlroy:

• Fermanagh
  and Tyrone remained important counties for
  McElroy, although the name extended as well into Monaghan and the
  southern
  parts of Armagh and Down.  Clogher in Tyrone recorded 61 McElroy
  families
  in the census of 1860.
• McIlroy
  was more localized, to Antrim and Belfast and to
  the northern parts of county Down near Belfast.  Sir
  William McIlroy of Hilden was well-known in the early
  20th century
  for his expertise on flax.
  

The
McElroy and McIlroy names were both found
in
county Down.  The
earliest record there
was of a John McGylboy who was the Canon of Dromore around the year
1406.  It was said that there were two
McElroy
branches, the “red” and the “black” McElroys.
More recent numbers have included:

• Archibald
  McIlroy, the local JP and
  writer who went down with the Lusitania
  in 1915.
• and James
  McElroy the acclaimed fiddler.

Rory
Mcilroy the golfer was born in Holywood, county Down.
His grandfather Jimmy had repaired cranes in
the Belfast docks where the Titanic was built.

America.  There
were reports that the McElroy name had appeared in Maryland land grants
as
early as 1659, either as indentured servants or being transported there.  John McElroy was born in Cecil county,
Maryland
in 1690, married there, and then moved to Wake county, North Carolina
sometime in
the 1720’s.  Later descendants spread
across the South.

The
McElroy
name first appeared in Pennsylvania in 1717.
Some of these McElroys settled in Bucks county. William
McElroy was recorded in Doylestown in
1749 and Sarah McElroy was
the
subject of a fatal duel in 1798.
Other McElroys in Pennsylvania migrated to Virginia, to Kentucky
(in
1830), and later to points south.  John
McElroy’s 1901 book The History of Scotch
Irish McElroys in America covered these lines.

Two McIlroy lines, both said to have been of
Scottish descent, were in Arkansas by the early 1800’s:

• Daniel
  McIlroy, born in
  Virginia in 1756, fought in the Revolutionary War, being captured
  during the
  Battle of Long Island.  His grandson
  Daniel settled in Randolph county, Arkansas in 1813.
  By 1889 his son Hemmet was the oldest living
  settler of Randolph county.
• while
  John Paul McIlroy, born in North Carolina in
  1787, was believed to have been the forebear of the McIlroys of Dalton
  in
  Randolph county.

Canada.  Henry
McElroy and his family from county Down were one of the
military families
that first settled Richmond, Ontario near Ottawa in 1818.
Three years later William McElroy and his
family from Armagh came to Ontario, moving around several times before
settling
in Oshawa.  Three of his sons later moved
to Waupun, Wisconsin.  Meanwhile Samuel
McElroy and his family came to Dundas county, Ontario from Ballymoney
in county
Antrim sometime in the 1840’s.

Select McElroy Miscellany

If you would like to read more, click on the miscellany page for
further stories and accounts:

• McElroy
  Miscellany
  

Select
McElroy Names

John McElroy was the Jesuit priest who
founded Boston College in 1857.
Neil McElroy was President of Procter &
Gamble and US Secretary of Defense under President Eisenhower.
Jimmy McIlroy was a well-known Northern Irish
footballer of
the 1950’s and 1960’s.
James McElroy of Drumnaquoile was an
acclaimed fiddler from county Down.
Rory McIlroy is a professional
golfer from
Northern Ireland, the first ever to win four majors by the age of
twenty five.

Select McElroys Today

• 6,000 in the UK (most numerous
  in Antrim)
• 7,000 in America (most numerous in Texas)
• 6,000 elsewhere (most numerous in Canada)