Darcy / Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Darcy / Family History

Darcy / Family History

The ancient origin of the name Darcy was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. Darcy is a locality name meaning 'of de Arcy', from a place found in Normandy. This name is often spelt D'Arcy. This is historically correct in the case of those families of the name who descend from Sir John D'Arcy who was Chief Justice of Ireland in the fourteenth century, namely, the Darcys of Hyde Park, County Westmeath, whose chief seat was at Platten, County Meath. It is reasonable to assume that the Darcys of the east midlands of Ireland are of that stock. There were other minor septs, one in County May located near Lough Mask. The other in east Galway was a branch of the Ui Maine. In the famous ancient manuscript 'The Annals of Loch Ce' the name MacDarcy appears as that of a County Leitrim Chieftain in the years 1384 and 1403.The Darcy family crest (or coat of arms) came into existence many centuries ago. The process of creating these coats of arms began as early as the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this, including Ireland. The new more formalized art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own family crest, coat of arms, including Darcy descendants.