After the murder, in 1333, of William de Burgo, third Earl of Ulster of that name, and the lessening of the English power which resulted from it, many if not all of the distinguished Anglo-Norman families located in Connaught and Munster became hibernicised--_Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores_--spoke the Irish language, and assumed surnames in imitation of the Irish by prefixing Mac (but never O in any instance) to the Christian names of their ancestors. Thus the De Burgos in Connaught took the name of Mac William from their ancestor William de Burgo, and were divided into two great branches, called Mac William Oughter and Mac William Eighter, _i. e._ Mac William Upper and Mac William Lower, the former located in the county of Galway, and the latter in that of Mayo; and from these sprang many offshoots who took other surnames from their respective ancestors, as the Mac Davids of Glinsk, the Mac Philbins of Dun Mugdord in Mayo, the Mac Shoneens, now Jennings, and the Mac Gibbons, now Fitzgibbons. The Berminghams of Dunmore and Athenry in Connaught, and of Offaly in Leinster, took the name of Mac Feoiris, from Pierce, the son of Meyler Bermingham, who was one of the principal heads of that family in Ireland. The head of the Stauntons in Carra took the name of Mac Aveely. The chief of the Barretts of Tirawley took the name of Mac Wattin, and a minor branch of the same family, located in the territory of the Two Backs, lying between Lough Con and the river Moy, assumed that of Mac Andrew, while the Barretts of Munster took the now very plebeian name of Mac Phaudeen, from an ancestor called Paudeen, or Little Patrick. The De Exeters of Gallen, in Connaught, assumed the surname of Mac Jordan from Jordan De Exeter, the founder of that family; and the Nangles of the same neighbourhood took that of Mac Costello. Of the Kildare and Desmond branches of the Fitzgeralds there were two Mac Thomases, one in Leinster, and the other in the Desies, in the now county of Waterford, in Munster. A branch of the Butlers took the name of Mac Pierce, and the Poers, or Powers, that of Mac Shere. The Freynes of Ossory took the name of Mac Rinki, and the Barrys that of Mac Adam. In the present county of Kilkenny were located two families, originally of great distinction, who took the strange name of Gaul, which then signified Englishman, though at an earlier period it had been a term applied by the Irish to all foreigners; the one was Stapleton, who was located at Gaulstown, in the parish of Kilcolumb, barony of Ida, and county of Kilkenny; the other a branch of the Burkes, who obtained extensive estates in that part of Ireland, and dwelt at Gaulstown, in the barony of Igrine. The writer, who is the sixth in descent from the last head of this family, has many of his family deeds, in which he styles himself sometimes Galle and sometimes Galle alias Borke; on his tomb, however, in his family chapel at Gaulskill, he