O'NEILL Lane's English-Irish Dictionary (1904) does contain the word penis, but we are directed to membrum virile for a fuller explanation. Here we find membrum femineum, membrum puerile (boidin), and membrum virile. This latter is glossed as bod, slat fir, with the intriguing addition (cf. under Dildo) oirnis ar cuma slaite fir (an appliance, tool or instrument with the appearance of a penis.) However, Dildo is not to be found herein, but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines dildo as "A meaningless refrain or burden in old ballads and songs". We wondered if this recourse to Latin terminology was a certain delicacy, and when looking up the surname Cox(e) we again suspected that certain delicacy. Cox is a respelling of Cocks "(son) of Cock", Cock being a surname in which many possibilities meet, mostly jests (one of them obscene).
On looking up Cox in MacLysaght's Surnames of Ireland we are directed to see MacQuilly. This, we are informed is from Mac an Choiligh (presumably from coileach, cock). "This Co Roscommon name, and its variants MacGilly and Magilly (Mag Coiligh) which are in use in Co Monaghan, have been extensively changed to the English Cox. The MacQuillys of Co Roscommon were an Eranagh family."
And whereas there is not a single entry of MacQuilly/ MacGilly/Magilly in the telephone directories of the Republic, there are 537 Cox entries, the greatest concentration being in the 04 area. In The Phone Book of Northern Ireland there are around 90 Cox entries, and of the nine McGillys therein, five are in Co Tyrone.
And though the surname Cox had been in Ireland earlier, the name is listed among the "Adventurers for Lands in Ireland 164246." Listing the families of the 16th century, Description of Ire- land In Anno 1598 notes that M. Cox settled in Kilworth, Co Cork. In the transplantation to Connaught 1654-58 Robert Cox and his wife Katherine, together with her Rory Beragra were removed from Lisgarriff, Co Tipperary to Kiltullagh, Co Galway, where they received 113 acres. In 1683 William Cox was recorded as living at Ballynoe in the Co Limerick parish of Ballingarry, and Taylor & Skinner's Maps of the Roads of Ireland (1778) shows a Cox resident still at Ballynoe. In 1811 William Cox, Ballynoe, made his will, while in 1876 Robert H. Cox possessed 108 acres in that same parish of Ballingarry. In 1814 Ambrose Cox was at Clara House, Clara, Co Offaly, and this was the location of another Cox in 1876, the proprietor of 1,096 acres there. This information is contained in Owners of Lands of One Acre and Upwards (1876), which shows Cox holdings in four Leinster counties, three Munster counties; in one of Ulster's nine, and in Cos Leitrim, Mayo, and Roscommon. In this latter county, the homeland of Mac an Choiligh, was Thomas Cox, Gillstown, Strokestown on 446 acres. A later "landed" Cox family of that county was at Mocmoyne House in the parish of Boyle. Spelled Mackmoyne in the Co Roscommon book of Survey and Distribution (1636-1703), it was then part of the property of Sir Robert King. Interestingly the 1814 resident of Mackmine (in the Co Wexford parish of Clonmore) was Richard N. King, esquire. The Irish origin is, at this time, undetermined but Joyce's Surnames of Ireland hazards "Magh 'ic Maoin, plaint of the son of Maon, a very ancient personal name".
"Sir Richard Cox (1650-1733), though Irish, was an aggressive Protestant who espoused the Williamite cause: he was a judge and Governor of Cork, but was removed from the Privy Council because, in spite of his Protestantanism, he opposed the violation of the Treaty of Limerick. He later became Lord Chancellor of Ireland". (Edward Mac Lysaght's Irish Families). Another worthy to bear that surname was Watty Cox (1770-1837), gunsmith and journalist. He was editor and printer of the Union Star, wherein he launched savage attacks on the Orange Order and exposed working-class grievances. He was a member of the United Irishmen, but afterwards provided information on the movement to Dublin Castle. After a spell in the United States he returned to publish the Irish Magazine and Asylum of Neglected Biography, which despite fines and imprisonment, he produced from 1808 to 1815. He was awarded a pension on condition that he left Ireland, but he returned in 1835, lost his pension and spent his last two years in impoverished circumstances, or as expressed elsewhere "in presumably deserved poverty."