FAMILY TRADITIONS
The family tradition is that we are descended from Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Carroll who died in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne. He was attained in 1692 after his death and his property confiscated. This act left his children in a legal limbo. They were no longer recognised as his children and were effectively disinherited from their grandfather Daniel Carroll under English law.
It is believed that Thomas was Col Francis Carroll’s lieutenant at the Boyne. Francis survived the Boyne and served in France in the Irish Brigade and died in the battle of Marsaglia. Some details of the Carrolls and O’Carrolls who fought at the Boyne can be found in King James’s Irish Army List (1689) by John D’Alton, 1855.
Was John related to Charles Carroll of Carrollton?
It has always been the tradition that there was some connection but how far back no-one was sure. Daniel Carroll was the great grandfather of Charles Carroll of Carrollton who signed the American Declaration of Independence. He has proved to be the common ancestor.
Daniel O’Carroll of Litterluna (d 1688) had four sons:
i. Anthony of Lisheenboy
ii. Charles Carroll 1661-1720, who settled in Maryland. He was the father of Charles Carroll of Annapolis 1702-1782, and grandfather of Charles Carroll of Carrollton 1737-1802 who signed the American Declaration of Independence.
iii. Lt.Col. Thomas Carroll d. 1690, father of Thomas Carroll and grandfather of Edward Carroll 1715-1769 of Creenagh, co. Antrim.
iv. John Carroll died 1733.
Thus, Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Edward Carroll were second cousins. See O’Hart’s Irish Pedigrees and Ronald Hoffman’s Princes of Ireland, Planters of Maryland- a Carroll saga 1500-1782 (University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
When did the family reassume the Ó.
The family tradition is that John Thomas Carroll and his sons Wilfred Vivian Ferns Carroll and Claude St. John Carroll adopted the Ó prefix in 1894, after they had moved to England. They were perhaps influenced by the Gaelic League. The revival of Gaelic consciousness in the later eighteen hundreds saw many Irish families re-assume the Mac, Mc, Ó or other Irish form of their names. The Gaelic League was founded in July 1893 by Eoin MacNéill to preserve and extend the use of Irish as a spoken language. The Gaelic League was the most important organization associated with the Gaelic revival of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.