Evelyn Philip Shirley's The History of the County Monaghan (1879) is dedicated to "The Noble and Gentle Men of Monaghan" which county he describes as "the country of the Little Hills". His quote from Walter Scott at the head of the first chapter - "War was the natural and constant state of the Inhabitants, and Peace existed in the shape of brief and feverish truces" - would appear to be contradictory to the "gentle" in the dedication.
Monaghan derives from Muineachan, generally taken to be from muineach, "thicket-like, thorny, brambly . . . a brake or thicket". However, it also means "a back or hill", echoed in Shirley's "Little Hills".
Shirley informs us that in 1585, during the government of Sir John Perrot, "the district of Ulster, distinguished after the Anglo-Norman Invasion as Irish Uriell or Oriell, and MacMahon's Country, and at present comprehended by the County of Monaghan, was first made into `Shire Ground' and subdivided into five Baronies (heretofore the territories or `Captaincys' of petty chiefs of the MacMahon and MacKenna tribes), now Monaghan, Trough, Dartrey, Cremorne, and Farney". Ireland was divided into 334 baronies, but apart from history, the vast majority are no longer of any significance.
Not only does Monaghan name a county and a barony, but it is also the name of a parish and a town. In 1462, Phelim Mac Mahon founded a monastery there for Conventual Franciscans, which after dissolution was granted to Edward Withe; "but even at that time no place deserving the name of a village had arisen near the monastery". The population of the parish in 1837, some 10 years before the Great Famine, was 11,875, of which 3,848 were located in the town.
Monaghanstown, a townland in the Co Westmeath parish of Dysart is Baile Ui Mhanachain, O Monaghan's town. The placename and the surname have two totally different origins. The latter, also rendered Monahan, is derived from manachan, the diminutive of manach, "a monk". This was a sept of Roscommon, with probably another in Oriel (Armagh, Monaghan etc).
Annale Rioghachta Eireann/Annals of the Four Masters notes the death in 866 of Manachan, lord of Ui Briuin na Sionna, ancestor of O Monachain. This beautiful territory lies between Elphin and Jamestown, Co Roscommon, comprising the parishes of Kilmore, Aughrim, and Cloncraff.
The same source notes the death and slayings of people of this surname, lords of Briuin na Sionna, in 928, 1145, 1176, 1196. This last listed was Iodnaidhe O Monachain who lived at Lissdorn near Elphin, where there is a well called Monaghan's Well. This man was killed, it is said, by O Beirne with a blow of a fist (dorn), giving rise to the placename Lissdorn. The deaths of five others of the name are noted between 1229 and 1287. Lochlann O Manachain was killed by his uncle in 1229, and Maoilsheaclainn O Manachain was slain by relatives the following year.
The 1659 "census" lists O Monaghan/ Managhan among the principal Irish surnames in the Co Donegal barony of Tirhugh; in the Co Fermanagh parishes of Aghaharcher, Enniskeane, and Magerycool mony, and in the Co Leitrim barony of Carrigallen. By 1876 Monaghan holdings were one acre in Co Kildare; two acres in Co Meath; 77 acres in Co Clare; and 433 acres at Coxtown, Delvin, Co Westmeath.
The Kiltartan and pre-Kiltartan representation of the speech of the Irish peasants was pretty far off the mark. It had the appearance of a copy of Irish speech, overheard as one passed through the country at a pretty clip. Had they taken Jonathan Swift as an exemplar they would have been closer to the mark. His A Dialogue in Hibernian Style, written around 1735, displays a fair representation of that speech with the strong influence of the Irish language.
Apart from the -uc- word, the best that our fellow creatures in Ireland, when intent on insulting another, is to call them either the female or male genitalia, or part thereof. One of the two participants involved in Swift's dialogue, when denigrating his neighbour says "in short, he is no better than a spawlpeen, a perfect Monaghan". We know not whether this was a reference to the surname or to the county.