There has been enough testing done through Ancestry.com to determine related cluster of our matches by using Ancestry's 'In Common With' feature. Two groups have emerged which are self-related and related to the three Hoy tested people. One has about 60 members, is located west of Dundalk, and called McGinn. The other has about 30 members, is located north of Dundalk, and is called Crilly. Crilly has many more verified locations than McGinn and this is seen in the table below. The Hoy location is at the best genealogical record that we and the Louth County Library can find. It is at a tiny townland called Newragh and is between Knockbridge and Louth Village. We find the centroid of these locations which is near to Knockbridge by using spherical geometry.

The data of the Newragh family are below in the first table. The father is James and the mother Catherine. The boys are Thomas, Hugh, James, and Edward. The girls are Mary and Margaret.

The James Hoy and Margaret Phelan family in Easton had children named Margaret, Sarah Jane, Catherine, Mary, Rosanna, John, and Thomas. Margaret Phelan's parents were Sarah and John. Her friend and god mother of her first child Margaret was Rosanna Brennan. With these and the Newragh names, all Easton children's names are accounted for.

The names of three of the Newragh children are found in Griffith' Valuation of 1856. There is only one Hugh at all, three Marys in adjacent townlands near Louth Village, and one nearby Thomas. We added these to our map using a point in the middle of the three Mary townland for her. There are several with the name Thomas, but the only nearby one was used.

Name	Baptised	Sponsors	Sponsors
James Hoy	Father
Catherine McCullin	Mother
Thomas Hoy	03/04/1788	Thomas Gartlany	Ann Maginnis1
Hugh Hoy	03/04/1790	Patrick Maginnis	Mary Tagert
Mary Hoy	14/04/1792	Neal Herrill	Margaret Maginness
James Hoy	16/05/1794	Daniel McCart	Mary Lynn
Margaret Hoy	04/07/1796	Christopher Fitzsimmons	Mary Kindelan
Edward Hoy	08/12/1798	Patrick Byrne	Mary Manville

Relationship	Label	Shared DNA (cM)	Shared segments	Area	County
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	34	1		Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	32	2		Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	31	1		Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	30	2		Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	27	2	Clontygora	Armagh
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	26	2	Dundalk	Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	21	2	Dromiskin	Louth
3rd cousin 2x removed	Crilly	20	1		Louth
3rd cousin 2x removed	Crilly	20	1		Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	20	1	Ardee	Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	20	1	Annaverna	Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	18	1	Ardee	Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	17	2	Dundalk	Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	17	1	Dundalk	Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	16	1	Proleek	Louth
Half 3rd cousin 1x removed	Crilly	15	2		Louth
4th cousin	Crilly	15	1	Clontygora	Armagh
1st cousin	Crilly	1022	31	Louth Village	Louth
4th cousin	McGinn	22	1	Clonturk	Monaghan
4th cousin	McGinn	25	1	Ardee	Louth
3rd cousin 2x removed	McGinn	24	1	Carrickmacross	Monaghan
4th cousin	McGinn	21	1	Ardee	Louth
4th cousin	McGinn	20	1	Drumgowna	Louth

• The green circle is the Hoy family 'kit' (it means the DNA sample).
• The purple circles are the location of the names of the Hoy Newragh family in Griffith's Valuation of 1856.
• The blue circles are the Hoy family matches on Ancestry.com.
• The centroid of the blue and green locations is red with a C.
• The numbers mean the number of matches for that location.
• The circle with a 7 means there is no finer grain location than County Louth.
• None of the kits have a surname similar to Hoy.

This is a map of the Ho(e)y names in Griffiths Valuation of County Louth in 1854. Also included is McGough (Mac Eochaidh) which can descend from the same king called Eochaidh as Hoy (O'hEochaidh).

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Our Y-DNA line is: M222>Z2959>BY35297>FGC4077>FGC4078>A725>S676>S679>FGC37618>FGC37613>FGC37623

FTDNA maps Z2959 near Kinnegad, Westmeath and M222, FGC4077, S679, and BY35297 near Tara, Meath.

Year  SNP    Total matches
 -124 R-M222 (16251)  
  -52 -Z2959 (11319)  
   26 --BY35297 (424)       Fíatach Finn mac Dáire, from whom are the Dal Fiatach in Uladh. 36-39
  292 ---FGC4077 (418)
  338 ----FGC4078 (400)
  424 -----A725 (228)       Muiredach Muinderg mac Forga mac Dallan (first Catholic king by St. Patrick). 465-489.
  750 ------S676 (23)       Eochaid mac Fiachnai 790-810, Cairell mac Fiachnai. 810-819. Lissue and Craeb Tulcha taken.
  951 -------BY189805 (9)
 1770 --------BY189768 (7)
  982 -------S679 (14)      Niall mac Eochada 1016-1063 or Eochaid mac Ardgail (Hoey descend from him). 972-1004
 1043 --------FTD2377 (2)   Donn Sléibe Ua hEochada. 1071-1078
 1055 --------FGC37618 (8)  Donnchad mac Duinn Sléibe 1091-1095 or Eochaid mac Duinn Sléibe. 1095-1108
 1153 ---------FGC37613 (3)
 1779 ----------FGC37623 (2)

Sloinne Ó hEochaidh - The Family of Hoy of the Dál Fiatach

Ulster

The Irish surname Hoy arose in the ancient kingdom of Ulster, which took its name from the Irish name Uladh, pronounced Ully or Ulla, but the meaning of which is lost. "This is indeed an actual, verified, historic, no-doubt-about-it royal dynasty." - from IrishTribes.com.

Read about the archaeology of the ancient Ulster capital at Emain Macha or Navan Fort

Click here to hear Hoy pronounced in Irish

Usefull information about ancient Ireland

Seanchas was the study of Féineachas or Brehon Law, Stair or History, and Ginealas or Genealogy. It determined who you were and what you were in society. The modern term for Storyteller, Shanachy comes from this, but does not carry the same meaning.

Read about Seanchas and ancient Ireland

Ancient Writings

Ireland has the oldest written language in Europe after Greek and Latin, and we still have numerous poems, histories and Annals as well as the famous epics. All of these have information about the very old Sloinne Ó hEochaidh (Family of O'Hoey). The Annals are a set of historical comments kept yearly in various monasteries from soon after the time of Saint Patrick or about 500 AD. Most of this literature was destroyed by the English and we have incomplete versions of much of it, but there is still a very large body of work left which allows scholars to piece together the old histories.

The first thing that modern historians did after about 1970, was to recognize that the popular histories called 'The Book of Invasions' - Lebor Gabála Érenn, was a work of fiction, created by the two O'Neill dynasties to justify their domination of Ireland. The past 40 years of research and modern archeology has revealed a much different world to us, and the Sloinne Ó hEochaidh is prominent in it.

Dál Fiatach

The Dál Fiatach were the principal tribe (Tuath in Irish) in ancient Ulster and were located in the eastern part of County Down. They provided the majority of kings of Ulster from at least the time of Christ. The name meant the 'Share of Fiatach' after a king called Fiatach Finn or Fiatach the Fair, who died about 50 AD. Scholars are not sure that Fiatach was a real person or an ancestor that was made up later by his descendants who were the main line of the kings of Ulster until 1200 AD.

In any case, the ancestry of the kings of Ulster is traced back from 1200 AD, through the time of Saint Patrick, and back to Fiatach. Fiatach's own line is traced back to the Gods, the last two of which are called 'Old' the son of 'Too Old' and would have lived around 350 BC which is a time of important archaeological discoveries in Ulster. Fiatach is listed as Fiatach Finn mac Dáire or the son of Dáire which may be the ancestor god of the Dál Fiatach because the name is shown on Ptolemy's map of Ireland in eastern County Down. This pedigree is generally believed to be reliable from the time of Saint Patrick, although there is much literature about earlier kings. The reason that the time of Saint Patrick is accepted is because he lived and died among the Dál Fiatach kings and is buried in their old capital of Downpatrick in eastern County Down.

Read more about the Dál Fiatach here.

The Ulaidh in general and the Dál Fiatach in particular arose in the last centuries BC when the La Téne culture was spreading in the northern part of Ireland. There are clear connections between the Ulaidh, La Téne, and M222 (M222 is described below).

Surnames

The Irish were the first people in northern Europe to adopt surnames. Originally, only the families of the kings, poets, and abbots took surnames which began in the 10th and 11th centuries. Irish society was based upon three generations. You could not move up in society yourself. Only if your family kept the new status for three generations, could you grandchildren move up. So it was with surnames. You chose the name of your grandfather. This meant that Ua (which meant grandson) and then á was prefixed to your grandfather's name. In the 12th century another form became popular; it was 'mac moccu' which meant 'son of the son of'. This was shortened to Mac, but still meant grandson.

So, after the king of Uladh named Eochaidh (earlier Eochu and pronounced ockey or owey) died in 1004 fighting the O'Neill, his family, who were the main line of the Uladh kings, took his name as their family name or Sloinne in Irish, and became the Ó hEochaidh. This was written O'Hoy in the 17th century and Hoy later. It is written as Hoey in Ireland today because the Irish pronounce it as almost two syllables.

Eochaidh comes from the old Irish name for a horse Ecchu, which is cognate with the Latin equs for horse. Eochaidh means 'steed like' and was a popular names among the kings because Ireland was a horse society.

Annals of Ireland

The various Irish Annals first mention the new surname in 1015 and the last mention is in 1208. In 1200, a combination of Normans, O'Neills, and under-kingdoms finally destroyed the Dál Fiatach and their royal line, the Sloinne Ó hEochaidh. After that, the family is lost to history and the O'Neills became kings of Ulster.

Here is a listing of all of the entries for the family from the Irish Annals.