Like the foot of many an aspiring damsel which was pummeled and squeezed in an attempt to fit into the glass slipper in the story of Cinderella, so were the Irish names of persons and places in an attempt to accommodate the tongues of English-speaking planters and adventurers for land in Ireland.
Enthusiastic antiquarians created the mysteriously foreign-sounding Hi-Brasil (U∅ Breasail), Hy-Many (U∅ Mhaine), Ultonians (Ultaigh) and Momorians (Mumhnaigh), more akin to the names of places found in Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. First names were equated with very English names - D·bhaltach was made Didley and Dolty; Donnchad became Donat and Dinis, and Brigit was betimes Dillie. By comparison Maolmhaodh≤g did not fare too badly - on it was bestowed another Irish first name - Malachy (from the Irish Maolseachlainn). The name means "devotee of St. Mβed≤c", and its most famous bearer was St Mβel Mβed≤c ╙ Morgair, better known as the 12th century St Malachy of Armagh.
Maolmhaodh≤g gave rise to the surname ╙ Maolmhaodh≤g, the modern spelling being ╙ Maolaodh≤g. Its anglicised form, Logue, has 115 entries in telephone directories south of the Border, of which 69 are in the 07 area of Co Donegal, and Cos Sligo and Leitrim. North of the Border there are about 170 entries in The Phone Book.
And if Logue is not immediately identifiable with ╙ Maolaodh≤g, much less so is the English surname Leech ("doctor, physican"). "For some reason (or one might almost say without any reason) it (╙ Maolaodh≤g) has been anglicized as Leech in that part of the country in which it originated, viz. Co Galway: the family is first recorded as chiefs of a district between Athenry and Athlone, and is still found in counties Galway and Clare. In the Athlone area Leech is recorded in the registration statistics as synonymous with Logue, Loogue etc." (More Irish Families: Edward MacLysaght).
Annβla R∅oghachta ╔ireann/Annals of the Four Masters records the death in 1016 of Diarmaid ╙ Maelmaedh≤g, abbot of Gleann Uisean. Onamasticon Goedelicum says that this is the valley wherein lies today's Killeshin, Co Laois.
An earlier and more accurate anglicisation than Logue is contained in a Fiant of 1603, noting the pardon of Rory O Donnell of Tirconnell and hundreds of followers, amongst whom were Dermot oge and James O Mulvoge. A Census of Ireland c. 1659 lists O Mulvog among the principal Irish names in the Co Donegal barony of Kilmacrennan.
"During the course of a riot at Derrygonnelly (Co Fermanagh) a man named Murvanogue was killed by an Orange yeoman named Kitson. The father of the murdered man went from magistrate to magistrate, seeking for some one to take the necessary depositions for Kitson's arrest. All refused."
Kitson fled to America and on his return he was tried, and "in the face of the clearest evidence of his guilt, acquitted by a jury of his Orange brethren" (The Orange Society: Rev H. W. Cleary, 1913).
Peadar Livingstone in his The Fermanagh Story (1969) writes of that same Derrygonnelly fair of July 1810 where "young Denis Love was killed".
Elsewhere he quotes Maginnis's "The Lettered Cave on Knockmore Mountain, Derrygonnelly" (Kilkenny Journal 1860-1), wherein a Denis Love is mentioned as Denis Murwurnagh. "Is it possible that many of Fermanagh's 56 Love voters today are descended from some Gaelic family?"
We wondered if Murvanoge might have been a misspelling of (╙) Mulvogue, and if Murwurnagh was a misspelling of Murvanoge. Was Murvanoge also Den(n)is Love?
Neither is listed by any authority on surnames, nor have we found any name any way similar to either. (A dilettante with notions of scholarship might speculate that the second one might appear to be mo mhuirneach, "my lovable person"!).
A notable bearer of this surname was Michael Logue (1840-1924), cardinal.
Born in Carrigart, Co. Donegal, he was appointed professor of dogmatic theology at the Irish College in Paris in 1866, the year of his ordination.
In 1874 he returned to Donegal as parish priest of Glenswilly, and thence in 1876 to St Patrick's, Maynooth as dean and professor of Irish and theology.
He became bishop of Raphoe in 1879, Archbishop of Armagh in 1888, and was created a cardinal in 1893. 'He supported the Gaelic League wholeheartedly, being himself a native Irish speaker (A Dictionary of Irish Biography: Henry Boylan 1998).
Loguestown names two half-townlands in the Co Derry parishes of Coleraine and Ballywilliam.