Kinsella - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Cinnsealach
Meaning: from the Uí Chinnsealaigh dynasty
Traditional stronghold: Wexford
One of the few Gaelic surnames with no O or Mac.
Pronunciation: kin-SEL-a; Irish Cinnsealach: KIN-sha-lokh
History of the Kinsella name
Kinsella derives from Cinnsealach, a byname meaning 'wearer of a headdress' or possibly 'proud head', originally an epithet of Enna Cennsalach, an early king of Leinster and ancestor of the powerful Uí Cheinnsealaigh dynasty, which included Diarmait MacMurrough, the twelfth-century king whose appeal to Henry II precipitated the Anglo-Norman invasion. Unusually, the name survived without the O or Mac prefix common to Gaelic surnames, functioning instead as a hereditary byname in its own right. The family and their name remain firmly associated with County Wexford, the historic heartland of the Uí Cheinnsealaigh kingdom, to this day.
Variants: Kinshella · Kinsela
Famous bearers of the name
- Thomas Kinsella - Major twentieth-century Irish poet and translator of the Tain Bo Cuailnge
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Murphy · Doyle · Kavanagh · Cullen · Roche · Keating · Redmond · Larkin