According to the Co Limerick book of the Civil Survey AD 1654 to 1656, Piers Creagh fitz Piers of Limerick, Alderman, and Irish Papist, owned "ffoure Burgesses or Burgesses' portion of the plowland of Athdare lying Eastward of the bridge thereof together with 19 tenements and gardens, a salmon weare", while elsewhere in the town he had "an old stone house called Cloghan Creagh, allsoe with twentie houses, or tenements, with their gardens and Keeloges and severall Eele free bankes, or portes." At Craggan Cainteach he owned three more houses, as well as "Kealloge Vadery an swale with foure gardens."
Another of the name, James of Limerick, also an Irish Papist, had "One house or garden pcll of Creaghs Burgesse in the sd towne of Athdare'." Creaghs also had holdings in Cahirconlish, Carrigparson, Luddenbeg and Luddenmore in the barony of Clanwilliam, and 16 houses and an old castle in the Liberties of Kilmallock.
Adare, wherein the now obsolete Creagh's Burgesse, derives from Ath Dara (ath, a ford, dair, oak).
Creagh was among the principal Irish names in six Co Clare baronies, and in the County of the City of Limerick, as listed in the 1659 Census of Ireland. Fourteen Creaghs were listed as tituladoes in the county, as well as one each in the cities of Cork and Limerick.
The Justiciary Rolls (1308-1314) notes that in 1313 John Crewagh was among the jurors in Limerick in two cases of theft, one from Robert de Adar (of Adare). Among the pardoned of Cashel, Co Tipperary in 1574, were Elena Crief, widow, and Robert Creife or Creaghe, butcher.
This was noted in The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns (1521-1603), with Nicholas Creagh appointed Gauger and Searcher of Limerick in 1554; James fitzHenry Creaghe, merchant of Kilmallock, being one of two persons pardoned "especially for the escape of prisoners from goal" in 1559.
That same year John and Piers of Kilmallock were among the pardoned. In 1570 another Creaghe was among the pardoned of `Killocia or Killmalloke'. In 1577 James Creagh, merchant, and John Creaghe were among the pardoned of Cork city.
Was it the same James Creaghe of Cork who was listed in a pardon of 1578? A fiant of 1586 concerned the hearing of a divorce case between Richard Stridch and Ellionora Creagh.
MacLysaght's Irish Families says: "This name presents one of the few examples of a cognomen superseding an original name. Creagh is the anglicised form of Craobhach `branchy', an adjective formed from craobh, a branch.
"The Creaghs are a branch of the O'Neills of Co Clare, the tradition being that in a battle with the Norsemen at Limerick they carried green branches with them. This tradition is, of course, the raison d'etre of the laurel branches in the Creagh coat of arms."
There were at least six distinguished Catholic bishops and archbishops named Creagh, among whom were Dr Pierce Creagh, Archbishop of Dublin during the penal code of 1705, David Creagh, appointed Archbishop of Cashel in 1483, and Richard Creagh (1525-1585), Archbishop of Armagh, who died in the Tower of London after 18 years' imprisonment.
Mac Lysaght comments that very few of the name became Protestants. Remarkable, then, that of a surname that was never populous, there were 19 Creaghs listed in Convert Rolls who conformed between 1738 and 1787. They were from counties Tipperary, Kerry, Limerick and Cork, and seven were listed as of Dublin.
The Cork Creaghs were among families from landed backgrounds who supplied clergy in 1837, according to Ian d'Alton in his Protestant Society and Politics in Cork 1812-1844. Taylor & Skinner's 1778 Maps of the Roads of Ireland shows Creaghs at Laurentium, Doneraile, Co Cork; Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) lists 14 Creagh holdings in Co Cork. Among the larger were the 2,873 acres at Creagh Castle, Doneraile; the 1,361 acres of Gethin A. Creagh, Kingstown, and the 1,124 Mitchelstown acres.
Co Clare had six holdings, with the 6,004 acres at Dangan, Tulla, being the largest of all. There were five modest enough holdings in Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford. Lewis's 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland informs that in the town of Doneraile is the newly erected mansion of A. G. Creagh, esq: "The castle at Creagh is in good preservation, and about to be fitted up as an appendage to the family mansion."
Of the 85 entries in telephone directories south of the Border, 47 are in the southern part of the country, especially in the Cork area. (Do the 10 Crays bear the same surname?)