Rowe
An Irish surname of Wexford. In the 2010 US census it was carried by 69,879 people, the 478th most common surname in the country.
Rowe is the anglicised form of four distinct Irish names. Some you can hear in the English name; others look and sound nothing like it, and were simply swapped for it.
Mac Conrubha, son of CúRubha (hound of Rubha, or Rowe, a place-name)
Mac Ruaidh, son of Ruadh (red)
Ó Ruaidh, descendant of Ruadh (red). This family stood in Co. Cork and Co. Waterford.
Ruadh
Where the name comes from
Ruadh is simply the Irish for red or red-haired, an epithet which took the place of the real surname, and Roe is often merely the last syllable of a longer name such as MacEnroe. Mac Ruaidh is son of the red one.
Ó Ruaidh is an old surname on the confines of Cork and Waterford, and in Waterford it is now anglicised Ormond, because it sounds like Urmhumha, the Irish name for Ormond or East Munster. Mac Conrubha, son of the hound of Rubha, is a Breifney surname that gives MacEnroe and Rowe.
Wexford, photographed
Photographs made in Wexford.
Wexford
Wexford gets more sunshine than anywhere else in Ireland. Hook Head lighthouse has been working since the thirteenth century, which makes it one of the oldest in the world. The beaches on that coast, Curracloe and Rosslare among them, run for miles and are mostly empty.
Hook Head, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford
Moonrise, Tramore, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford
Carnival, Tramore, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford
Notable bearers
Debbie Rowe (born 1958), nurse.
Jonathan Rowe (born 2003), association football player.
Luke Rowe (born 1990), sport cyclist, track cyclist, and sporting director.
Mike Rowe (born 1962), voice actor and television presenter.
Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718), writer, politician, and poet.
About this page
The counties on this page are where the name was thickest on the ground in Ireland a century and a half ago, not a claim about any one family. Names moved around inside the country as much as they left it. The photographs are mine, made in the counties named.
More Irish surnames: Williams · Davis · Edwards · Cooper · Kelly · Cox · Brooks · Wood · James · Price · Butler · Jordan
How common the name was
In 1890, 21 births were registered under Rowe in Ireland, most of them in Wexford.
| Leinster | 13 | 62% |
|---|---|---|
| Ulster | 4 | 19% |
| Munster | 3 | 14% |
| Connacht | 1 | 5% |
| Ireland | 21 |