Description: The McGinley name: from the Rosses of northwest Donegal to the coal patches of Pennsylvania, the docks of New York, the tenements of Boston, and into American culture.
A history of the McGinley name — from a clachan in northwest Donegal to the docks, mines, and pulpits of America.
Chapter I — The Name A name woven from two old Gaelic words: fionn , fair, and gal , valour. McGinley is the anglicised form of Mag Fhionnghaile — "son of Fionnghal," a personal name combining fionn (fair, bright) and gal (valour, strength). In Irish, the patronymic Mac lenites to Mag before the silent Fh , which is why the classical form is Mag , not Mac . The name is pre-Norman, dated to the 10th or 11th century, and is overwhelmingly indigenous to County Donegal in the northwest of Ireland.
The clan's seat lies in the Rosses and the country around Dunfanaghy, with significant concentration west of Letterkenny. Spelling has drifted across centuries and ports of entry — MacGinley, MacGinlay, McGinley, McGinly, Ginley, Ginnell, McGinnell — but all return to the same root in the Donegal hills.