Possible Surname Variants for "Grant" in Donegal

Conclusion

I list the detailed readout of all surnames in Donegal in Griffiths that start with "gran". Putting these on the map gives the spread that is shown on the map above

There are 5 groups worth considering

• 21 families with name Mc Granahan in Clonca Parish
• 51 families with name Granny in the rest of the Inishowen Peninsula. Mainly in Fahan Lower and Clonmany parishes
• 10 families with name McGranahan around Letterkenny
• 4 families with name Grant in Clondavaddog Parish
• 5 families with name Magrane in Drumhome Parish (probably a completely different group of people from Letterkenny and Inishowen groups)

Today one can argue that they have all metamorphosed to Grant, there are 136 Grant in the Donegal phone book, but no Granny. Whilst the absence of evidence does not necessarily mean the evidence of absence, particularly with Irish records, my conclusion is that they did indeed change their name. The evidence points to there being no "Norman" descent Grants in Donegal, and indeed no Grants of any description in Donegal prior to around 1850, when McGranahan and Granny started to change their names to "Grant" for whatever reason

Detail

Detailed Griffiths results for a search for any surname in Donegal starting with "Gran..." I used the AskAboutIreland web site which Lindel Buckley, the owner of the best of the Donegal web sites Donegal Genealogy Resources pointed me to.

And Donegal Genealogy Resources gives 3 more Grants from Griffiths for Clondavaddog