Dennehy

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The name Dennehy is principally associated with Irish counties Cork and Kerry. Its original form in Irish is Ó Duineachdha meaning descendant of Duineachaidh. The name goes back to the 11th century recorded in the Battle of Dublin. There are two meanings of the name in the books. One is "humane" and the other is "man from the fairy hills". Humane is more commonly used. This sept is from the same ancestral line as the O Sullivans. Maonach Ui(O)Duineachdha was the founder of the sept.

The Dennehy coat of arms is a divided shield, white on top, red on the bottom. The top has two lions rampart facing each other and a fish between them. The bottom is a harp between two battle axes. It is similar to Mulvihil arms but without the "red hand" and the crest is different. This can be found in "The Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland" by P.W. Joyce 1909 and "Irish Family Names" by Patrick Kelly, 1939. There is an arms that is wrongly associated with the name: a red shield with a white diagonal cross. This ironically is the arms of the English Denny family that attacked the Irish in the Cork/Kerry area and took their lands. When coat of arms became popular and profitable dealers began assigning arms to names that sounded the same. Unfortunately there have been many mistakes. The Irish lost too much to bury their identity in English symbols.

One of the earliest references on record is to Donall Ó Denaghie of Cloghea, Co. Cork who in 1585 is described as vestarus, the primary meaning of which is the keeper of monastic wardrobe, later used for keeper of a vestry.