Though the word "fort" suggests a defensive character in the military sense, the circular earthworks numerous in Ireland were generally not such, but an enclosure wherein a family resided. Forts are referred to under various Irish terms, and these, or Anglicised versions of them, we frequently find incorporated in place-names: lios, rath, cathair, caiseal, dun (Antiquities of the Irish Countryside: Sean P. O Riordain). Estimates of the number of forts of earth and stone in Ireland vary from about 30,000 to over 40,000.
Excluding place-names incorporating the stone-built cathair and caiseal, there are 1,410 townland names having lios as the first element, 1,600 having rath, and 580 starting with dun. Though the words lios and rath were considered to mean the same thing, evidence provided by early texts, however, reveals a distinction now lost and shows that rath signified the enclosing bank while lios meant the open space between this and the house within.
A fort and the surrounding land which belonged to its inhabitants was simply called an rath, later devolving into the formal place-name An Rath. The Anglo-Normans in their turn called it le rath. Either rendering was adequate where it was not necessary to distinguish one rath from another, but where and when it was, it frequently had the surname of the owner attached: the earlier versions having the surname preceding rath. In the later versions the order was reversed, the surname being the second element. Raith or le Rath in The Calander of Archbishop Alen's Register was also variously rendered Moensrath, Mean Rath, Meenrath, Menesrath, Meinie Rath, and Meane Rath, between 1172 and 1534. It eventually became Rathmines, which it is still today, with Rath Maoinis as its Irish. (Could a case be made to call it An Rath, similar to today's official An Gort, An Chathair, etc?).
There is no evidence when persons bearing this surname first came to Ireland, though it was sufficiently established by 1172 to have lent its name to the place now called Rathmines. Sean de Bhulbh, in his Slointe na hEireann/Irish Surnames, equates the rare Antrim surname Mines, with the rare Donegal-Derry surname Moyne(s). A similar English name, derived from French moine, a monk, may be represented here. He quotes An Sloinnteoir Gaeilge (O Droighneain & O Murchu 1991) that the Irish for this is O Muin. If this is so, this Irish name must be a different and separate name to that borne by those who gave name to Rath Maoinis.
Some time between 1289 and 1291, £360 was granted to William de Moenes, keeper of the timber of Eleanor, the queen consort, for finding timber in Ireland and carrying it by sea to the queen's castle of Haverford in Wales. In 1294 the same man was granted £40 to buy wines, victuals, crossbows and other necessities for the provisioning of Dublin for the war of Leinster. In 1293, listed as the Chamberlain of the Exchequer, he received £300 and was assigned to purvey victuals at Cork, Waterford and elsewhere in Munster, to send to Carlisle and to Scotland for the king's expedition there.
Persons named de Moenes were provosts of Dublin in 1319, 1331, 1337, and 1351. In 1326, Gilbert de Menes was granted four score acres at le Rath and Frythiay (Farcaghe?), also a third part of 34 at le Stonyweye: in 1334 Robert de Moenes was constable of the castles at Newtown McKinegan, Arklow and Balyteny (Ballintine in the Co Kildare parish of Kilmeague). A grant of land to William Sparke, clerk, was made in 1399 by William Meones, lord of Moenesrath, and in the period between 1529 and 1534 Thomas de London enfeoffed William de Menes of four score and one acres of land with appurtenances in Tircknocks, Adhkar, and Colonia (Cullenswood), beyond the water of the Doder.
The 1659 Census of Ireland lists George Mines as titulado of Garvagh, Co Derry, and Mr Moynes in Golden Lane, Dublin city.
Eminent bards, harpers, and musical composers in Ireland in the 18th century, listed in O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees are Cormac Comman, Thomas O Connellan, and his brother William, Roger and Echlin O Kane, Cahir MacCabe, Miles O Reilly, Charles Fanning, Edmond MacDermott Roe, Hugh Higgin, Patrick Kerr, Arthur O Neill and one Patrick Moyne. All belonged to Ulster and Connacht.
Telephone directories of the island locate a single entry of the surname Mines north of the Border in Co Armagh, and a single entry in the south in Co Louth. More than half of the 39 Moyne(s) entries are in Co Down and in Co Donegal.