"And to sit on the sate by the old mossy gate/A-whispering to Kate Muldoon", went the ballad, and if the reputation of the Muldoons is anything to go by, it might be advisable not to raise one's voice in the presence of one so-named. Writing of the (O) Muldoons of Lurg in his The Fermanagh Story, Peadar Livingstone quotes John O Donovan (1809-61), antiquary and scholar, as recording that "a dozen of the warlike men of Lurg would beat a funeral of the men of any other barony. They are tall and stout with large heads and round faces".
O Maolduin are listed by Annala Rioghachta Eireann/annals of the Four Masters as lords of Feara Luirg (later the Co Fermanagh barony of Lurg) from 1000 to 1505, when we read of the slaying of Felim O Neill by the men of Lurg, the sons of Turlough O Muldoon. The Muldoons retained a fair portion of Lurg until 1600. And though of Oriel stock, they were looked upon as "outsiders" in Fermanagh, "rough uncultured strangers who had little respect for God or man". Sean Mor O Dubhagain (1372) in Topographical Poems wrote: "Muintear Mhaoil Duin Luirg nach lag/do mhuin a cuilg i comhrag."
The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns notes the 1564 pardon of Patrick Muldoyne together with a number of other chaplains in Waterford, for offences against the statute relating to public prayers in church. Also pardoned were Donal O Muldowne, of Ballybreaghway (?Co Meath), in 1598; William O Muldowne, yeoman, of Aghanacrinna in the Co Kerry parish of Killahan, in 1601; and Morris O Muldowne, of Portnelligan, Co Armagh, in 1602. The "census" of 1659 lists O Muldowne among the principal Irish names of the Co Fermanagh parishes of Aghaharcher, Enniskeane and Magherycool mony. Indeed the O Muldoons were herenachs (airchinneach, stewards of church lands) in this latter parish.
In 1714 it was reported that George Muldoon, popish priest of Cashel, was dead. This is probably the Co Longford parish of Cashel. In his 1832 will, John Muldoon, Killycreeny, Co Cavan, among other bequests, left his wife the grass of a cow and calf for life, as well as "the big heffer called Stallerd. To my son Andrew Muldoon one shilling and one penny as being a disobedient son."
Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) listed but a single person so named: John Muldown, 24 Werburgh Street, Dublin, the owner of 454 Kildare acres. "The name (Muldoon) has been changed to Meldon but it is rare," says de Bhulbh in his Sloinnte na hEireann/Surnames of Ireland (1997), and a number of holdings by persons bearing this English name (meaning "multicoloured hill") were then in Cos Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Mayo and Galway. James Dillon Meldon and John Dillon Meldon, of Dublin city, had, respectively, 1,753 and 2,897 Galway acres.
The surname O Maolduin is based on the personal name Maolduin which is possibly a reformation of Celtic duno-maglos "warrior of the dun (fortress)", according to Irish Personal Names (O Corrain and Maguire). However, de Bhulbh favours Patrick Woulfe's contention, in his Sloinnte Gaedheal is Gall, that it means "chief of the fort". It was a relatively common name in early Irish society. Current telephone directories have over 200 Muldoon entries south of the Border and 90 to its north. These are in Connacht and the north midlands, and in Cos Monaghan, Tyrone, Derry and Donegal. The nine Meldon entries are in Dublin.
Surnames based on the localities or places where the ancestors originated, are called toponymics. Irish examples are Bray, Corbally, Sutton, Finglas, Galbally, Santry, Slane and Trim. And though surnames frequently form part of place-names, through the addition of the prefix castle and mount, or the suffix town or bridge, a surname on its own never became a place-name.
We always welcome Irish local names on new housing developments, as against snobbish "English" imitations, but we are puzzled at a new housing development in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, being named Maolduin.
Magheraculmoney, a parish in the Co Fermanagh barony of Lurg, meand, according to P. W. Joyce in his Irish Names of Place (vol 1), "the plain of the back of the shrubbery".