Molloy

The O'Molloys, Irish Ó Maolmhuaidh from a word meaning proud chieftain, were a Gaelic Irish kindred of the Southern Uí Néill who ruled Firceall, the Fir Ceall or “men of the churches”, in the south-west of the Kingdom of Meath around Tullamore. As princes of Firceall they patronised its abbeys, including Rahan and Kilcormac.

In the early thirteenth century one of their kindred served as bishop of Ferns. The family held its lands through the later Middle Ages until the English plantations of the 1550s, when Firceall was confiscated and divided into the baronies of Ballycowan, Ballyboy and Eglish.