s, registrars, and others who had
difficulty in pronouncing Gaelic names, letters became inserted or
dropped and the names were written down phonetically. In the
mutations of time, even these names became still further changed, and
we find that the descendants of the Irish themselves, after the lapse
of a generation or two, deliberately changed their names, usually by
suppressing the Milesian prefixes, "Mac" and "O". Thus we have the
Laflin and Claflin families, who are descended from a McLaughlin, an
Irish settler in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century; the Bryans
from William O'Brian, a captain in Sarsfield's army, who, after the
fall of Limerick in 1691, settled in Pasquetank County, N.C., and one
of whose descendants is William Jennings Bryan, now Secretary of
State; the Dunnels of Maine, from an O'Donnell who located in the
Saco Valley; and at the Land Office at Annapolis I have found the
descendants of Roger O'Dewe, who came to Maryland about 1665,
recorded under the surnames of "Roger", "Dew", and "Dewey". I find
Dennis O'Deeve or O'Deere written down on the Talbot County (Md.)
records of the year 1667 with his name reversed, and today his
descendants are known as "Dennis". Many such instances appear in the
early records, and when we find a New England family rejoicing in the
name of "Navillus" we know that the limit has been reached, and while
we cannot admire the attempt to disguise an ancient and honorable
name, we are amused at the obvious transposition of "Sullivan".

Thus we see, that, numerous though the old Irish names are on
American records, they do not by any means indicate the extent of the
Celtic element which established itself in the colonies, so that
there is really no means of determining exactly what Ireland has
contributed to the American Commonwealth. We only know that a steady
stream of Irish immigrants has crossed the seas to the American
continent, beginning with the middle of the seventeenth century, and
that many of those "Exiles from Erin", or their sons, became
prominent as leaders in every station in life in the new country.

Nor is the "First Census of the United States" any criterion in this
regard, for the obvious reason that the enumerators made no returns
of unmarried persons. This fact is important when we consider that
the Irish exodus of the eighteenth century was largely comprised of
the youth of the country. Although the First Census was made in 1790,
the first regular