Menu:	New Shield	Other Shields	McG Origins	McG Maps	Things Irish	First Names	McG Tree	McG Linx

The modern spelling of this name is usually McGuinness, McGinnis, MacGuinness or MacGenis but in the historical records in English they are as a rule Magennis, a form still to be found in some places today.

In Irish the name is MagAonghusa, i.e. son of Angus. They are descended from Saran, chief of Dal Araidhe in St. Patrick's time and thence to Eochaidh Cobha of Iveagh, County Down. Like the chiefs of many of the great Irish septs Magennis took advantage of the English policy of "surrender and regrant" warly in the seventeenth century; earlier they were often at loggerheads with the ecclesiatical authorities and they showed a tendency to accept the tenets of the Reformation; conforming bishops include two Magennisses - one of the dioceses of Down, the other of Dromore. However, by 1598 the Magennis chief of the time, who's father was officially regarded as "the civilest of all the Irish in these parts," had joined Yyrone (who was his brother-in-law) and thus "returned to the rudeness of the country." 

A generation later their loyalty to Ireland and the ancient faith was undoubted. The Franciscan Bishop of Down and Connor, Hugh Magennis (d. 1640), was closely related to Viscount Iveagh and many of the Gaelic nobility of Ulster. They were consistently on the Irish side during the resistance to English aggression in that century and after the disasters following the battle of Boyne they were finally dispossessed of their wide patrimony in Co. Down, much of which had been planted with English (not Scottish) settlers after the Cromwellian war. Many of them took service as Wild Geese. The best known of these was Brian Magennis, second Viscount Iveagh, who was colonel of Iveagh's Regiment in the Austrian Imperial Army and was killed in action in 1703. His brother Roger Magennis, third Viscount (d. 1709), served both France and Spain with distinction.

The present Lord Iveagh (of the second creation), head of the largest brewery concern in the world - Guinness of Dublin - though not a direct descendant of the lords of Iveagh mentioned above, belongs to a cognate family of Co. Down, This family spent very large sums on improvement of housing and social conditions in the city of Dublin as well as on the upkeep of St. Patrick's Cathedral and its surrounding.

General John R. MacGuinness (b.1840), the American soldier, was born in Dublin.

Copyright © 1994 - 2004 Tim McGuinness - All Right Reserved Worldwide & Webwide
for permission to use please contact  timmcguinness @ mcguinnessonline . com