The Gaelic-Irish surname Ó Cianmhaic has been reasonably anglicized Kerwick in Co. Kilkenny. . They were numerous in Co. Waterford in the seventeenth century,The prefix 0, in this case already falling into disuse then, is now obsolete. The name belongs to west Munster where in time it became corrupted to Ó Cearba in Irish and Kirby in English. Up to the twelfth century Ó Ciarmhaic was chief -the Annals of Loch Cé call him king - of Áine (Knockany, Co. Limerick). Ballykervick, in the Macroom area, recalls the earlier form of the surname. In more recent times they have spread into Co. Kerry: there are 52 Kirby families in that county in the 1901 census. It would seem that a third small sept of Ó Ciarmhaic existed in Connacht; this is not mentioned in the Gaelic treatises on Hy Many and Hy Fiachrach, so the Kirbys and Kerwicks of Co. Galway and Mayo may be descendants of migrants from one of the two septs mentioned above. The records of the Wardenship of Galway suggest that the name in both forms existed there and in the diocese of Tuam in the sixteenth century, and when Matheson made his statistical analysis of the birth registrations for 1890 he found one quarter of those for Kirby (35 in all) were in Connacht. therefore. |On examining the 1864-1866 returns to find barely ten per cent in Connacht. In both periods the majority of the births were in Munster, (excluding Clare where the name is well known topday due to the outstanding success, in Ireland and America of the Kirby brothers of Tuamgraney in the game of handball. Kerwick was almost entirely confined to Co. Kilkenny and adjoining areas.