At "Pleas of the Crown and Delivery of Gaol" at Drogheda on April 23rd, 1312, Thomas Boyt, Meath, was among those who surrendered to Roger de Mortuo Mori. That year at the same venue Philip Boyt, Meath, was among the jurors at two trials, and in 1313 Philip and Henry Boyt were listed among the jurors at two different trials.
Boyt appears to be the Scottish surname Boyd, a name very numerous in Ulster. It was erroneously rendered O'Boyd in some northern heath money rolls. Robert Bell's Ulster Surnames informs us that it derives either from the Isle of Bute or from the Gaelic buidhe, meaning yellow.
Boyd is also a sept name of the royal line of Clan Stewart, or Stuart, and this family claims that the name derives from buidhe: "The Gaelic name for Bute is Bod." We do not have a Scottish Gaelic dictionary to hand, but in Irish Gaelic bod means penis, but also churl, lout. Heading another 1312 list of persons who had similarly surrendered to Roger de Mortuo Mori in 1312 was one Symon Bod.
Bell informs that in 1606-'07 David Boyd, owner of a smallholding in Ayrshire, where his brother Lord Boyd was a prominent landowner, had acquired lands from Conn O'Neill and Sir Hugh Montgomery. As he failed to become a denizen the lands were forfeited on his death in 1626, and his son was forced to petition the English Privy Council for a regrant.
Most of the Boyd lands in north Antrim were acquired by the family through the marriage of Hugh Boyd, rector of Ramoan, to Rose, the only daughter of Hugh Mac Neill of Duneany.
The 1659 census shows Boyd among the principal Irish and Scottish surnames in the Co Antrim baronies of Glenarm, Dunluce, Cary and Kilconry, and in the town of Carrickfergus. John Boide was titulado of Drumnovoddry, Co Down, and Thomas Boyde of Ballyhalbert, in the Co Down parish of Portavoggy. One of the five tituladoes of the town of Monaghan was Mathew Boyd, gent, and Thomas Boyd, merchant, was among the tituladoes in the Wood Quay ward of the city of Dublin.
It appears that it was this same Thomas Boyd that was among the commissioners of the Poll-Money Ordinances of 1660 and 1661, for the city of Dublin, and for Co Wicklow. And was it some descendant of this Thomas who lived at Kilquade, Co Wicklow, in 1778, as shown on Taylor & Skinner's Maps of the Roads of Ireland. Also on this map was Boyd, Esq, at Clare, Ballycastle, Co Antrim. The 1814 Directory lists 14 of the name, of which six are in Co Down; two in Co Donegal; two in Co Wexford, and one each in Counties Antrim, Sligo and Derry, and in Mayo, wherein Sir William Boyd, Mountgarden, Castlebar.
Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) shows 67 Boyd holdings in 17 of Ireland's 32 counties, of which 53 were in Ulster. The total acreage was over 42,000 acres. Seventeen of the holdings were under 100 acres. The largest was the 5,304 acres of Sir Harley Hugh Boyd, The Mansion, Ballycastle, Co Antrim. Many were of modest size.
Current telephone directories list over 1,000 Boyd entries in The Phone Book of Northern Ireland, with 246 in the directories south of the Border.
Boyd's Farm names a townland in the Co Tyrone parish of Donaghenry; Boyd's Islands are in the Co Mayo parish of Aglish (wherein Castlebar), and Boyd stown is in the Co Antrim parish of Kilwaughter. We have not discovered when the Boyds imposed their surname on this townland.
Elizabeth Boyd, born c. 1700, is included in Irish Writers (Brady and Cleeve 1985), though her place of birth is not given. Her novel was entitled The Happy Unfortunate or The Female Page (1737) with the sub-title: A Genuine and Entertaining History, Relating to some Persons of Distinction. Intermix'd with A Great Variety of affecting Intrigues in Love and Gallantry. Also the Remarkable Letters that passed between the several Persons concerned. Co Antrim-born writer Hugh Macauley Boyd (1746-'94), whose work was published in two volumes in 1800, was originally Hugh Macauley, but a legacy persuaded him to change his name to Boyd, his mother's father being an O'Boyd. Co Louth-born Thomas Boyd (1867-1927) was regarded as a notable minor poet of the Edwardian period. Henry Boyd (1756-1832), born in Dromore, Co Down, wrote several volumes of poetry, but his reputation was made by his translations from Dante and Petrarch.