Crowe Coat of Arms, Family Crest and Crowe Family History

Crowe Family History

The ancient origin of the name Crowe was found in the irishsurnames.com archives. Variants of the Irish name Crowe include Crow, McEnchroe and McEnroe. These names are all derived from the Gaelic MacConradha sept that was located in Thomond, County Clare, in the western part of the country.

A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. It is also the case that many Irish septs or clans that are related often belong to a larger groups, sometimes called tribes. For example the 'Tribes of Galway' consisted of fourteen distinct families. The 'Tribes of Kilkenny' were ten families, etc.

They were allied to the O'Dea sept. In modern times the great majority of Crowes either hail from Clare or Tipperary, with some also found in County Dublin. The ancient placename near Mount Callan in County Clare called Skaghvicencrowe, which means 'the thorn bush of MacEncroe', still exists. Notable bearers of the name include Dermot MacEncroe, 1730, author of many beautiful poems, and O'Beirne Crowe of Cong, County Galway, who became one of the first professors in Queens College Galway. Some Crows and Crows in Ulster are of immigrant origin having arrived from England and Scotland during the seventeenth century. The Crowe 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 Crowe descendants.