The Dictionary of the Irish Language gives corc as variously meaning "heart", "hair", "purple" and "cork". It is thought possible that it is the first meaning that is found in the personal name Corc, from whence the surname O Cuirc, which is anglicised (O) Quirke.
Ua Duinnin's Focloir Gaedhilge agus Bearla defines cuirc as "a cap or coif; a top-knot; a fowl's crest; also a tuber or tumour; a knife, a whittle", with curc being "a bushy tuft of hair standing upright; a hen's comb".
O'Hart in his Irish Pedigrees gives cuirc as the origin of O Cuirc, giving "a head, a whittle, a swathe", as the definition of cuirc, with the following surnames supposedly deriving from it - Cuirk, Quirk, Quirke, Head and Whittle. One can see how he included Head, however strained the connection, but whence Whittle? [(O'Reilly's Irish-English Dictionary (1864) defines corc as "a brewing-pan; a large pot; a knife; a whistle; children; hard skin on hands or feet; a welt"].
Whistle? Whittle? Of the four entries of "whittle" in the Oxford Dictionary only the first has the slenderest connection. This definition is "A cloak, mantle. A blanket. A baby's woollen napkin or flannel petticoat. A shawl or wrap".
The surname Whittle is in fact an English toponymic meaning "white hill", according to The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Mac Lysaght's Surnames of Ireland says that this name was numerous in Co Waterford as early as 1650, "now more so in adjacent Leinster counties".
However, of the 46 entries in current telephone directories, 27 of the 33 in the 05 area (more or less south Leinster and Waterford) are in Co Waterford.
The "census" of 1659 shows persons named Whittle as titula does of Corriolonty, Clonlisk, Co Offaly; of Ballirone, Co Laois, (spelt Whittell), and of Cnockny carigg, Doon, Co Limerick. They were among the principal Irish names in the Co Waterford barony of Middlethird.
Hardly "numerous", being but eight in number compared to the 44 Phelanes and 138 Powers.
Taylor & Skinners Maps of the Roads of Ireland shows two Whitley, Esquires, one at Grange, Co Roscommon, and the second located between Glenavy and Crumlin in Co Antrim. The Roscommon resident might indeed have borne the separate surname Whit(t)ley, but we feel that the Antrim esquire was really a Whittle, as persons of this surname were landowners in Co Antrim in 1876, according to Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards. Here was John Whittle, Kings bog, Doagh, on a single acre, and the Reps of Stafford Whittle were in possession of his 152 acres at Thrustleborough, (elsewhere spelt Thistleborough), Crumlin, Co Antrim. In Co Down Mrs Whittle, Banbridge had 258 acres, and Elizabeth Whittle, Dublin, possessed 2,711 Co Down acres.
In 1837, Whittle and Doyle were drug and spice merchants at 110 Francis Street, Dublin, and one Mrs Whittle lived at 37 Eccles Street, and the second at 12 Upper Pembroke Street.
"Fenians" was the name given by John O'Mahony to the republican organisation which he founded in New York in 1858. Chosen in honour of the ancient Fianna, it was intended to denote dedication to physical force to secure the independence of Ireland and the establishment of an Irish Republic.
Patrick C. Power's History of Waterford: City and County records: "The files on Fenian detainees in Dublin Castle make interesting reading. Most of those that are named there were from Waterford city, especially from Bally bricken." One of those was Thomas Whittle, a sailor from the Tramore area, arrested on March 12th, 1866, and released on July 19th on condition that he leave Ireland.
It had been claimed by the po lice that he conversed in Tramore in the summer of 1864 with a man named Lysaght, to whom he said: "We Fenians will soon be steeping our shirts in Protestant blood." Whittle said that he never committed any treasonable act and denied that he was a Fenian.
A barony was the domain of a baron, and in Ireland in 1596 was the largest division of land after the county (the domain of a count). Apart from Bargy and Forth, two of Co Wexford's baronies, and Co Kerry's Corca Dhuibhne (anglicised Corkaguiny), no other barony names continue in use. But as Middlethird - one of Co Waterford's seven baronies - was the place wherein the Whittles were among the principal Irish names in 1659 we have chosen it to head this column.
It was written Trian Mheadh onach by Seathrun Ceitinn in his Foras Feassa ar Eirinn (Keating's History of Ireland).