Deasy Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Deasy Family History

Deasy Family History

The family history of the ancient name Deasy was found in the irishsurnames.com archives.

Surnames developed a wide number of variants over the centuries. Many different spelling variations of the same name can be traced back to a single original root. Also, when a bearer of a name emigrated from Ireland it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books upon arrival at their new location. Some names have dozens of spelling variations. Some Surnames were also altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically, by their sound, and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another. This was especially so in Ireland where most Gaelic names were 'anglicized' at some stage.

Variants of the name Deasy include Deacy, Deecy, Deecie, Deecy, Dacey, Dassey, Dacie and many others. This name Deasy is often of Irish origin and is an anglicized form of the Gaelic Déise and Déiseach sept names.

A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. It is also the case that many Irish septs or clans that are related often belong to a larger groups, sometimes called tribes. For example the 'Tribes of Galway' consisted of fourteen distinct families. The 'Tribes of Kilkenny' were ten families, etc.

When Gaelic names were anglicized during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they were often changed to Anglo equivalents that sounded most like their original Gaelic name. Déise is an Irish form of the Deece family that had settled in County Meath in the twelfth century. The Gaelic name Déiseach is from County Waterford although the name is also now associated with County Cork and was anglicized as Deasy and its variants. A famous bearer of the name was Rickard Deasy (1812-1883), who pioneered the 'Deasy Land Act', one of a series of important tenant reform laws in nineteenth century Ireland. His son, Henry Hugh Peter Deasy (1866-1947), was a writer, Irish army officer and founder of the Deasy Motor Car Company in 1906. Deasy's Quay in Clonakilty in Cork is named for a successful ship-building family who became established there in the early and mid-nineteenth century. The Deasy family crest (or coat of arms) came into existence many centuries ago. The process of creating these coats of arms began as early as the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this, including Ireland. The new more formalized art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own family crest, coat of arms, including Deasy descendants.