The
Mortons
in Ireland
13th-17th
Century |
It is thought many unrelated families of Mortons were named based on
their hometowns in England and Scotland; placenames originating in the
Old English moor for "marsh or fen", and tun, for "settlement".
Mortons have been in Ireland since the English colonization of the Pale
around Dublin in the 1200's, but most came after the Ulster Plantation
in the mid-1600's and remained in the North, mostly in County Antrim. (32)
See also: People
of Ireland, English and Scottish Settlers |
Morton in
Tinahely
mid-18th
Century |
Our Morton family spent their last century in Ireland in County Wicklow
as squireens. They leased lands from the local landowner, Earl Fitzwilliam,
and sub-leased them to tennant farmers working on the Coolatin Estate in
the southern corner of the county. On the edge of the rolling Wicklow Mountains,
they lived in the vale of the River Derry around the town of Tinahely. |
|
We don't know exactly when the Mortons arrived in Tinahely, but based
on the available church records, it appears that all the Tinahely Mortons
descend from one family alive in Ireland around 1700 to 1710.
See how a "one couple" model 
appears in the burial and baptismal registries. |
|
Their descendants, the first generation
of Mortons in Tinahely  ,
were born in the 1740's. |