Exaggeration is not an uncommon characteristic, to be found in the Irish no less than others. A young Irish woman home for a holiday, was out with friends one moonlit night, when An Cill Mhor, "the big church". (Of course some may be from an choill, "the wood".)
Kilmore names two parishes in Co Tipperary, one of which was in the barony of Ormond Upper. In the latter, the 1834 Tithe Applotment Book and Griffith's Valuation of 1850 registered a single entry of the surname Cashel. There was also a single entry in each of the parishes of Nenagh and Borrisokane. Neither MacLysaght's The Sur names of Ireland nor de Bhulbh's Sloinnte na hEireann/Irish Surnames - inform us if the surname Cashel is derived from a place so named, as is the case with the surnames Ardagh, Athy, Corbally, Finglas, Rath, etc.
This surname is of dual origin: Anglo-Norman de Caiseal, connected with Co Louth and prominent from the 14th to early 17th century and pro-Irish; or native Irish O Maolchaisil (Maol Caisil, chief of Cashel). The latter, belonging to Thomond and adjacent areas, was also anglicised Mulcashel, and betimes even Mountcashel.
Cashel esq was at Bushfield, not too distant from the Shallee Turnpike, north-west of Nenagh, Co Tipperary. The 1814 Directory has Francis W. Cashell esq, living there. At that time George Cashell, esq, was at Beehive lodge, Cahirciveen, and George Cashel, at Dunkerron Castle, Kenmare.
Lewis's Topographical Diction ary of Ireland (1837) locates Kil more four miles south of Nenagh, with Rowan P. Cashel the tenant in Lissen Hall in this parish. The only persons of this surname listed in Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) were Rowan Cashel, Toomavara, with two Co Tipperary acres, and George Cashel, Shallee, Silver mines, with 400 acres in the same county.
For October 27th, 1469, The Dublin City Franchise Roll, 1468- 151 lists 15 persons, among whom was Edward Casshell, yeoman. He presumably was of the Anglo-Norman family, as was Oliver Cashel, a signatory to the 1661 "Faithful and Humble Re monstrance of the Roman Catholic Nobility and Gentry of Ire land", a memorial against the "prodigious afflictions" suffered by Catholics. Phone directories contain over 50 entries of this surname almost entirely spelt Cashell. Beyond the 01 area, this name is largely in the 02 area, mainly in Co Cork.
Another surname with a single entry in the parish of Kilmore found in Griffith's Valuation of 1850 was Segars. Variously spelt Seager, Sager and Sagar, the six entries of this name in current telephone directories are in Dublin, Sligo, Cork and Waterford.
Neither de Bhulbh nor MacLy saght include this surname. The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames, spelling it both Sagar and Seager, rarely Sager, say this Lancashire surname means "sea spear".
The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns notes that Stephen Segar, gent, who was granted the office of constable of Dublin Castle in 1587, when also he was leased some land within the precinct of the castle of Dublin.
He took backhanders to permit the escape of Philip O'Reilly and was displaced in 1600. John Seager was among the Adventurers for Lands in Ireland 16421646, and was granted land somewhere north - or south - of Cahir, in the Co Tipperary barony of Iffa and Offa.
Today the term "straightlaced" tells more of behaviour that it did when Fynes Moryson's Unpublished Itinerary (1998) dealing with 1626, informed that the Irish women "generally are not straight-laced, perhapps for feare to hurt the sweetenes of breath, and the greatest part are not laced at all".
He adds: "Also the Irish are generally obserued to be fruitfull in generation, as at Dublin in the tyme of the last warr, it was generally knowne for truth, that one of the Segers, while she lodged in the house of Mistres Arglas, bare fyue Children at one birth, and we all knowe an Alderman's wife that bare three at a birth, with many like examples."