Vallely Mythology
The name really is Irish. Edward
MacLysaght's The Surnames of Ireland (see
Bookstore to order the book) lists the
name as MacVallelly: The name has always been closely associated with County
Armagh. The older anglicized form, found in the Armagh and Monaghan hearth money
rolls and other seventeenth-century records, is MacIlvallelly, clearly indicating a name
of the Mac Giolla type.
|
Tom's Take |
| I have spent most of my life being told that the name Vallely
was Irish but with few details. In 1996 I went on the
internet and discovered that there are thousands of Vallely
persons scattered throughout the world, all thinking they had
the most unusual name in the universe. There is no longer
any doubt that the name is from Ireland. I am, however,
left with the lingering questions:
 | Is the name of Irish origin? |
| Exactly which Vallely came to the U.S. on what ship and
when? |
I am going to get that answer sometime before I die and
I'll probably have to make the trek to Ireland to do it.
Listed on this page are theories and family legends. |
Dan Vallely,
a police officer in New York State, provided me with a letter
about his family origins. It was written in 1990. The writer tells his daughter that he can go
back only as far as his grandfather, Patrick William Vallely who came from County Armagh
with his brother James. James was born in 1855 and joined the New York City P.D. in 1876. Patrick was also probably on NYPD until he established P.W. Vallely Inc.
an office furniture business in the Wall Street District (operated until about 1950 or
60).
Dan's Legend is in the sidebar to
the right. There is an interesting scholarly document on the
internet concerning the
Black
Irish and Spanish sailors in Ireland.
Patrick Vallely emailed me from Tuam, County Galway to tell me
his family legend. Three sons of a Vallely family left Armagh. One went to America,
one went to Europe and one to the south of Ireland (Patrick's family).
He signed the email Padraigh Macgillobhearshuiligh (said to be a
translation into Irish).
I
have received several intriguing emails hinting about the connection
between Scotland and the Vallely name but no follow up information.
Ireland's
Eye web site has some interesting articles on Irish history, including an
article on the Ireland-Scotland connection.
