Few Irish surnames cover as much ground as Connolly, which took root in County Monaghan long before the Norman invasion and belonged to a clan counted among the Four Tribes of Tara. A second branch settled in West Cork under the O’Donovans, and between those two heartlands, the name has since been worn by the richest man in 18th-century Ireland, the Easter Rising leader shot while tied to a chair, and one of the best-loved comedians of the modern era.
History of the Irish surname Connolly
Variants: Ó Conghaile
A very popular Irish surname with multiple spelling variations, Connollys were first found in County Monaghan and have a history there that predates the Norman invasion.
This clan, O’Conghailes, was one of the important Four Tribes of Tara and was a branch of the southern O’Neill clan. Another notable branch was Munster Connollys, which dominated West Cork as subjects to O’Donovans, and today many Connollys can still be found in their largest numbers in these two parts of Ireland.
Variations are numerous, but include Connally, Connelly, and Conley, with records of some immigrants to America during the 1800s showing names spelled quite differently during the course of one person’s life, as translations and new worlds struggled to record personal details accurately.
Famous people with the Irish surname Connolly
Among the well-known Connollys is William Connolly, supposedly the richest man in Ireland in the 18th century. This lawyer and financier built Celbridge’s Castletown House in Kildare with money he made buying and selling land lost by old Gaelic families exiled after the Battle of the Boyne. He was also Speaker in the Irish Parliament.
James Connolly was a Scottish-born republican and socialist leader. Born to Irish immigrant parents in the ‘Little Ireland’ slum area of Edinburgh, he left school at age 11 but went on to become a leading Marxist theorist and one of the political leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. He is credited with creating the Socialist Labor Party, as well as the Irish Citizens Army in 1913, and was one of seven signatories to the Proclamation in 1916.
He was executed by firing squad at Kilmainham Gaol in May of 1916, already so badly injured by gunfire at the General Post Office during the Easter Rising that he arrived at the event by ambulance, was carried on a stretcher in front of the firing squad, and was tied to a chair for his sentenced execution. His death and those of his fellow Irishmen at Kilmainham went down as one of the most significant events in Irish history.
Another Scottish-born man of Irish descent bearing the same surname, Billy Connolly, is one of the best-loved comedians of modern times. Born to William Connolly and Marie McClean in a disadvantaged area in Glasgow, he began his career as a celebrated folk singer before moving into comedy, rising to fame in the United States only in the 1990s when he appeared in an HBO special with Whoopi Goldberg.
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* Originally published in July 2013 in Ireland of the Welcomes. Updated in 2026.