The surname Davock is not listed in current telephone directories, and there was but a single one among Owners of One Acre and Upwards (1876).
That was Patrick Davock with three acres at Castleturvin, Co Galway. Mac Lysaght's Surnames of Ireland gives the Irish as Mac Dabhoc. Like the cognate MacCavock and MacCooke, this is a branch of the Burkes of Connaught; they used their father's name, Dabhoc or Dabhog, a diminutive of David, as the basis of their surname.
The surname Cook(e) in Leinster is mainly an English occupational name, and when found in Ulster it is usually the Scottish Mac Cook or Mac Cuagh. However in the west of the country it is an anglicisation of Mac Dabhoc, also called Mac Uag, anglicised Mac Cooge.
Owners list Cooks and Cookes in 17 of Ireland's 32 counties, from the 4,557 acres at Cooksboro, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, to single acre holdings in Cos Tipperary, Dublin and Donegal.
But no Mac Avock, no Mac Cavock, no Mac Cooge. Current telephone directories list five Mac Avocks, but no Davock nor Mac Cooge.
There are 52 persons named McCooge/Cooge/McCouge listed in the Co Galway Book of Survey and Distribution, one of whom was Tibbot oge McCooge who was to receive 61 acres at Ballyhugh, the property of Donnel McHugh mcDavid O'Dovelly and Richard mcHugh O'Dovelly, under the 1652 Act of Settlement.
When the Irish word giolla is combined with a saint's name as an element of a first-name, it is taken to mean "devotee". Otherwise it means (1) Youth; page, boy (2) Attendant, gillie; manservant, messenger. Dubh (black) and giolla combine to make the name Dubhghiolla. Annala Rioghachta Eireann/ Annals of the Four Masters notes the slaying of the sons of Duibhgilla, son of Bruadar in 893; the death in 898 of Duibhgilla son of Edirsgeal, lord of Ui Ceinnsealaigh; the slaying in 917 of Duibhgilla, son of Lachtnan, lord of Teathbha; the slaying of Duibhgilla, son of Robachan, in 932; and the further slaying of Duibhgilla, son of Laidhgnen, lord of Ui Cormaic, in 968.
O Duibhghiolla, the surname derived from that first-name, has been rendered O Dovelly, Devally and Deffely, but mainly (O) Divilly and Devilly. This was the name of two Co Galway septs; that of Ui Fiachra is usually placed in the south-west of the county at Kinvarra, and the other Siol Anmchadha in the south-east.
Of the 63 Divillys listed in current telephone directories, 54 are in the Connaught 09 area, there being eight Devillys and two Deffelys.
In 1689 and 1690 Williamite news-sheets hammered home to their English readers the cruelty and deceit of the Gael. English attitudes to the Irish were not simply characterised by fear, however. On stage or in popular literature there had always been a strong element of ridicule of the Irishman, and this trend had grown more pronounced in the Restoration period.
The comic Irishman was to become a stereotype, and the publication in c. 1680 of a volume of Irish jokes, Bogg-Witticisms, fixed this standard interpretation of Irishmen and their country as "absurd and contemptible" (The Propaganda War by David Hayton in Kings in Conflict: Blackstaff Press 1990).
Thomas Shadwell's The Amorous Bigot (1690), re-created his earlier comic character, the villainous Irish priest, Father Teague O'Divelly.
Not alone was he a hated priest, but this character additionally bore the name Teague (the anglicised spelling of the Irish name Tadgh), a derogatory nickname for an Irishman. But what derogatory element attached to O'Devilly?
Ballyhugh names townlands in Cos Cavan (Bealach Aodha, Hugh's road/track), Offaly, Roscommon and Galway. The latter - wherein the 17th century O'Dovellys - is Baile Ui hAodha, according to P. W. Joyce's Surnames of Ireland. This is in the parish of Kilmacduagh, wherein the excellently preserved round tower, which shares a lean with its more famous counterpart in Pisa.
Lewis's 1837 Topographical Dictionary of Ireland informs that this tower declined about 17 feet from the perpendicular. The recent corrective work on Pisa which brought it back nearer to the perpendicular would seem to be badly needed at Kilmacduagh. We do not know the height of this tower but 17 feet off the perpendicular? Wow!