Magill surname history

Magill and MacGill may be Irish or Scottish in origin, but in either case the linguistic root of the name is the same: Mac an Ghoill (Scottish) or Mac an Ghaill (Irish), both meaning "son of the foreigner or outsider (gall)". For the Highland Scots the outsider was quite specifically a Lowlander. Most of the Ulster Magills are of Scottish descent, and trace their beginnings back to the province of Galloway, where many of the post-Plantation settlers of Ulster originated. The surname is almost invariably Magill in the east of Ulster, while MacGill is somewhat more common in the west.

In the south of Ireland the surname has a complicated history. Stapletons - the name is an English habitation name - first came to Ireland with the Normans in the twelfth century. As they were absorbed into Gaelic culture, many of them adopted the surname Mac an Ghaill, which was in turn re-anglicised as Gall or Gaul(e), as well as Magill. Stapleton and Gaul are now common in the Kilkenny/Tipperary/Waterford area.

In addition to these, it is undoubtedly the case that Magill can be the truncated version of one of the many Irish names beginning Mac Giolla, "son of the follower [of ...]". This is also the source of many of the Gills, a family most numerous in the Connacht counties of Mayo and Galway.