Ó Siadhail / uaSiadhail / uaSiadgail is a Gaelic-Irish surname.

Overview

edit

There were at least three families of this name in Gaelic Ireland.

Little is recorded of the Ui Maine family. Those of Uí Failghe and Tír Chonaill were ollamhs of medicine, hereditary physicians to the ruling families in the respectives kingdoms and environs. It is not clear if the two were branches of the one family, or unrelated families who happened to bear the same surname.

One of the Ó Siadhail branches were physicians in service to the McMahons of Oriel, and later to the O'Neills.[1] In the 1580s, this branch relocated from Brosna, County Kerry to Moycashel, County Westmeath.[2]

Current forms

edit

The surname is now generally anglicised as O'Shiel, Shiel, Sheil, Sheils, Sheals, Sheal, and Sheilds (or Shiels, Shields as well as O’Shields), but the original form, Ó Siadhail, is used by persons who are Gaelic and conscious of their genealogy.

Notable bearers

edit

Notable people named Ó Siadhail or one of its variants include:

See also

edit

References

edit
  • Medicine and Medical Doctors, Chapter XIV, A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland, Patrick Weston Joyce, 1906.
  1. ^ Woods, J. Oliver (September 1981). "The history of medicine in Ireland". Ulster Medical Journal. 51 (1): 35–45. PMC 2385830. PMID 6761926.
  2. ^ Duffy, J (1861). "Owen O'Shiel, An M.D. of the Seventeenth Century". Duffy's Hibernian Magazine: A Monthly Journal of Legends, Tales, and Stories, Irish Antiquities, Biography, Science, and Art. 2.
edit