This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/oI4.2ACIB/769 Message Board Post: While I'm on the subject of Irish customs and traditions ... Someone asked on the list about some families dropping the 'O' in ÓDonnell. This was indeed a result of the penal laws in Ireland. In some places they were quite severe, according to my research, even to the point of death if families did not drop the ó in front of the surnames. At best they could not work or own property if they did not comply. Those who had lost their lands and needed to work had no real choice. The crown wanted to wipe out all vestiges of the Gaelic familial social structure. The habit of placing an ó in front of the surname was a shorthand of ogha, or ua, which today is generally translated as 'grandchild,' but much is lost in translation, since Gaelic is nothing like English at all, and which more properly might be rendered 'of the generations of --' The Gaels placed a great deal of importance on their lineage, believing their "first ancestors" to be the gods themselves. Many of the ÓDonnell families, being the most powerful families in the Tirconnell, and retaining many of their lands, had more options and held to their spelling. Others did not. The ÓGallaghers eventually forfeited ALL their lands, and therefor had no way to resist if they wanted to eat. Almost all ÓGallaghers dropped the ó. When the ÓGallahers in my line came to America, they changed it to Gallaher because the ó had lost all of it's meaning here where no one spoke Gaelic. As families were broken apart, they lost their seanachaidh (historians), and thereby lost much of the meaning for their customs. Since English doesn't even have fadas or diacritical characters, it likely became just too bothersome for most to continue, since the language they now spoke didn't even carry the same meanings and nuances in the name as it did when spoken in Gaelic. All my best, Michael Monroe Gollaher (Mícheál Mac an Rothaich ÓGhallchobhar)