O’Driscoll
Ó hEidirsceoil · descendant of Eidirsceol
O’Driscoll is Ó hEidirsceoil in Irish, said oh ED-ir-skohl, and means descendant of Eidirsceol.
Eidirsceol means a go-between or a bearer of news. A seafaring family who held the harbours of west Cork and taxed everything that came into them.
How it changes
- A man: Ó hEidirsceoil
- His daughter: Ní Eidirsceoil
- A woman who married into it: Bean Uí Eidirsceoil
- The family together: Uí Eidirsceoil
Where it comes from
west Cork, around Baltimore
Also spelt
O’Driscoll, Driscoll, Driscol
A name, not a pedigree
This is where the name came from, which is not the same as where you came from. Names were translated, anglicised, taken on by tenants and neighbours, and carried in by settlers who were no relation to the family that started them. To follow your own line, the 1901 and 1911 censuses are free and searchable, and give the county each person was born in.