McLaughlin
also McLoughlin, Mac Lochlainn
Sons of the Norseman, kings of Inishowen.
- Origin
- Ulster, Ireland
- Famous bearer
- Muircheartach Mac Lochlainn (d. 1166), high king of Ireland
- Register
- Irish family
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of McLaughlin
Seat vacantChief
No one leads the McLaughlin community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.
Current mission
No shared goal set yet. Once McLaughlin has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.
The McLaughlin clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.
Help rebuild the McLaughlin clan →What does the McLaughlin name mean?
From Mac Lochlainn, son of Lochlann ('Norseman', 'Scandinavian'). The Mac Lochlainn were a sept of the Cinéal nÉogain of the Uí Néill federation, distinct from the O'Neills proper, with their seat at Inishowen in north-west Donegal, the peninsula between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly. Through the 11th and 12th centuries the Mac Lochlainn briefly displaced the O'Neills as the dominant Cinéal nÉogain dynasty, producing two high kings of Ireland.
The history of McLaughlin
Domhnall Mac Lochlainn (d. 1121) made himself the dominant northern lord by 1100 and was acknowledged High King of Ireland with opposition until his death. His great-grandson Muircheartach Mac Lochlainn (d. 1166) was the most powerful Irish king of the mid-12th century, ruling from Tír Eógain and binding most of Ulster, Connacht and Leinster into nominal submission, before his defeat and death at Leitir Lúin in 1166 against Donnchadh Ó Cearbhaill of Airgialla. The political vacuum he left was the immediate opening Diarmait Mac Murchada exploited a year later by inviting the Norman intervention of 1169.
After 1166 the Cinéal nÉogain leadership reverted to the O'Neills and the Mac Lochlainn declined into a regional Inishowen lordship. They lost their lands in the Plantation of Ulster after 1607, but the surname remained densest across Inishowen and the wider north-west, and travelled with the Donegal-Derry-Antrim diaspora to America (Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, the Rust Belt) and to Glasgow and Liverpool in the 19th century. The Anglicised forms McLaughlin (American), McLoughlin (modern Irish) and Loughlin (uncapitalised Mc) are the commonest spellings.
Champions of the McLaughlin name
The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has its own page — biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.
Step Into History
Walk the streets and seats the McLaughlin name knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.
Notable bearers of the McLaughlin name
- Muircheartach Mac Lochlainn (d. 1166), high king of Ireland
- Domhnall Mac Lochlainn (d. 1121), high king of Ireland
- John McLaughlin (1927–2016), American TV host, The McLaughlin Group
- John McLaughlin (b. 1942), English jazz guitarist (Mahavishnu Orchestra)