Kathleen Much wrote:
> Please note that my comments about naming apply to ENGLISH colonists
> in VIRGINIA, the topic of the query. German, French, Dutch, and
> Spanish colonists followed the practices of their home countries.
> Catholic Irish (of whom there were very few in Virginia before the
> 19th century) also differed slightly, sometimes using saints' names
> instead of or in addition to English forenames. Anglican Irish used
> the English style and often Anglicized traditional Irish names (e.g.,
> Teige into Thaddeus and Donough into Dennis).

Kathleen, you raise an issue that has long interested me, and one I think
has been little researched: that is about early immigrants from Ireland.  In
labeling people "Anglican Irish" (a term I don't believe I've ever heard
before) do you mean Scots-Irish?  If not, could you please detail whom you
mean to describe with that term?

I have noted a great many early Virginians with Irish-sounding names, and it
has long been my belief that many people emigrated from Ireland to early
Virginia, perhaps by way of somewhere in England or Scotland.  Because the
great preponderance of Irish were/are Catholic, I suspect these people were
born and baptized in the Catholic church.  Because  there was no Catholic
church in early Virginia, and because of their relatively powerless position
at the bottom of the social hierarchy, they would have been unable to
continue to worship within the Catholic church.

I wonder if anyone else has studied this question, and can offer an opinion
about the presence of people from Ireland in early Virginia.  (I am not
speaking here of Scots-Irish Protestants, who are well documented, of
course.)  And please do tell me what group is referred to as "Anglican
Irish."

Libbie Griffin

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