Clan Kirby

Clan Story

The Kirby Legacy

Kirby is not a Highland or Lowland Scottish clan. It is primarily an Irish surname, an anglicization of the Gaelic Ó Ciarmhaic ('descendant of Ciarmhac'), a family of East Limerick who were chiefs of Eoghanacht Áine around Knockany until the Anglo-Norman invasion and whose name is still common in Limerick and across Munster; a separate, unrelated Kirby name is English, of Norse origin (from Old Norse 'kirkja' + 'býr,' 'church settlement').

The O Ciarmhaic sept was based at Knockany, County Limerick, and its chiefs are described as descending from Eoghan, son of the Munster king Oilioll Olum, making them part of the wider Eoghanacht Clan of Munster. Separately, George Fraser Black's 'Surnames of Scotland' records a Kirby in Aberdeen as 'most probably a recent introduction from England,' rather than a native Scottish family.