Cullin surname history

The surname Cullen may be of Norman or Gaelic origin. The Norman name has been derived both from the city of Cologne in Germany, and from Colwyn in Wales, and was originally "Colyn". In Ireland this Norman family was prominent principally in Co. Wexford, where their seat was at Cullenstown castle in Bannow parish. In the Cromwellian confiscations of the seventeenth century the lands and castle were given to the Boyse family. The remains of the castle are still to be seen.

Much more numerous in modern times, however, are descendants of the O Cuilinn, a name taken from cuileann, meaning "holly-tree". The more than 150 Irish placenames which include "cullen" are much more likely to derive directly from the original word than from the family name. The name originated in south-east Leinster, where the family were powerful before the ascendancy of the O?Tooles and the O?Byrnes in the 14th century, and this area has remained their stronghold, with the majority to be found even today in counties Wicklow and Wexford.

Several other Gaelic originals have also sometimes been anglicised as Cullen. The O Cuileamhain, also based in south Leinster, are more usually anglicised Culloon or Culhoun, while the Mac Cuilin of Leitrim are normally found as McCullen or McQuillan.

Jose Maria Cullen, descended form the Cullens of Lisbigny, Co. Offaly was provincial governor of Buenos Aires in the nineteenth century.

Sir William Portus Cullen ( 1855-1935) emigrated to Australia as a young man and became Chief Justice of New South Wales. Eucalyptus Cullenii is named for him.

Cardinal Paul Cullen (1803-1878), the first Irish cardinal, presided over, and guided, the revival of the power of the Catholic Church in nineteenth-century Ireland He was one of the founders of what is now University College Dublin.

.Another churchman, Father James Aloysius Cullen (1841-1921) was immensely influential in the Ireland of his time, founding the Irish Messenger in 1888 and the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association in 1898. At their height, the Pioneers had a membership of over 300,000.