Dinneen — Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Ó Duinnín
Meaning: 'descendant of Duinnín (little brown one)'
Traditional stronghold: Cork, Kerry
Pronunciation: din-EEN; Irish Ó Duinnín: oh dwin-EEN
History of the Dinneen name
Ó Duinnín, from a diminutive of donn, 'brown', was a learned family of Munster who served as hereditary poets and historians to the MacCarthys, the royal house of Desmond, keeping their genealogies and praising their deeds through the late Middle Ages. The name has always been concentrated in Cork and Kerry, especially around the Cork-Kerry border country of Sliabh Luachra, a district famous for poetry and music. Its most celebrated bearer kept the scholarly tradition alive into the 20th century: Fr Patrick S. Dinneen of Rathmore, whose Irish-English dictionary of 1904, expanded in 1927, remains a beloved monument of the language revival, cherished for definitions that read like miniature essays on rural Irish life.
Variants: Dineen · Denning · Downing
Famous bearers of the name
- Patrick S. Dinneen — Kerry-born lexicographer whose Irish-English dictionary is a cornerstone of the Gaelic revival.
- Frank Dinneen — Limerick athlete and GAA official who bought Jones's Road sports ground and passed it to the GAA as Croke Park.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · O'Sullivan · O'Connor · McCarthy · Daly · O'Connell · Collins · Fitzgerald