Ó hÁdhmaill


Ó hÁdhmaill is a Gaelic Irish clan from Ulster. The name is now rendered in many forms, most commonly Hamill. The clan are a branch of Cenél nEógain, belonging to the Uí Néill; they claim descent from Eochu Binneach, the son of Eógan mac Néill. Their descendants in Ireland are found predominantly across Ulster, and County Louth, Leinster.
In Irish if the second part of the surname begins with a vowel 'Á', the form Ó attaches a h to it, this is the h-prothesis mutation. In this case Ádhmaill becomes Ó hÁdhmaill. The other forms effect no change: Ní Adhmaill, Uí Adhmaill.
Capitalized as: Ó hÁDHMAILL or Ó ʜÁDHMAILL, the first 'h' should always be either lowercase, or a smaller 'H' font size.
HouseMaleMeaningAnglicisedWifeDaughterExamples
UíÓ/Uadescendant ofO'UíNíPeadar Ó hAdhmaill, Aoife Uí Adhmaill, Róisín Ní Adhmaill

Motto and Coat of Arms

The Motto is Esse Quam Videri, translated as To Be Rather Than To Seem.
The Slogan is "Vestigia nulla retrorsum", translated as No backward steps.
The Coat of Arms is described as being; A shield azure field with two horizontal bars of ermine fur. On top of the shield is a ducal coronet. Atop the coronet is the figure of a leopard in profile, sitting with its face to the viewer's left.
One of the leading clans of the Cenél mBinnigh, Cenél nEógain a branch of the Northern Uí Néill. They are descendants of Eochach Binnich mac Eógain, son of Eógan mac Néill, son of the fifth-century Néill Noígiallaig, founder of the Uí Néill dynasty. Cenél mBinnigh where the first clan of the Cenél nEógain to advance from Inishowen.
The O'Hamills continued to move from North Ulster with the Northern Ui Neill's, and ruled territory in County Tyrone and County Armagh, South Ulster.
Prior to the middle of the 20th century, Irish was usually written using the Gaelic typefaces, in this case the surname appeared as Ó hÁḋmaıll. The dot above the lenited letter was replaced by the letters dh from the standard Roman alphabet changing it to Ó hÁdhmaıll. Also the Irish language makes no graphemic distinction between dotted i and dotless ı so at the same time it changed to Ó hÁdhmaill.
As the dh is silent, the pronunciation is similar to spelling it as O'Hamill which is how it came to be spelt when it was phonetically anglicised, over time the spelling lost the O and changed to Hamill, giving us the modern Irish-English spelling of Hamill'.

Notable people include

Community

While Hamell in Irish is spelt Ó hÁmaill, it is often incorrectly used as the Irish version of Hamill.

Unrelated names – same spelling

There are several surnames that are spelt the same but are unrelated: