Kirkpatrick is basically a Scottish name formed from a place-Kirkpatrick, i.e. the church of St.

Patrick-and most of our Irish Kirkpatricks, especially those to be found in north-east Ulster, are of Scottish descent. Owing to its similarity to the Irish surname Kilpatrick, which can be a form of Gilpatrick or Macgilpatrick (the usual modern form of which is Fitzpartick), Kilpatrick has been widely substituted for Kirkpatrick. The latest available statistics show that the two names are about equally numerous and both are mainly confined to north-east Ulster. In fact Kilpatrick is unknown as an indigenous family in the Fitzpatrick country (see Irish Families p. 145). It was listed in the “census” of 1659-60 as a principal Irish name in two counties (Antrim and Fermanagh). But all the names classed as Irish in that document are not Gaelic. In the records relating to the Plantation of Ulster we find two Kilpatricks in the Lifford area classed as non-Irish, but on the other hand Owen Macgilpatrick who had 128 acres in Baskill, Co. Donegal is among the “natives”. Kilpatricks are fairly numerous today in north Donegal. I have found no evidence to show that these Kilpatricks were of an Irish sept of Mac Giolla Phádraig. In this connexion it is worth remembering that there is also a place-name Kilpatrick in Scotland. Woulfe states that a branch of the Mac Giolla Phádraig (Fitzpatrick) family of Ossory settled in Co. Cavan, but I do not think this can be accepted as the origin of the Ulster Kirkpatricks and Kilpatricks, though the latter (if not the former) were, no doubt, Scottish Gaels: the modern use of MacIlfatrick and MacIlfederick as synonyms of Kilpatrick in Co. Antrim corroborates this.

Ferguson lists both Kilpatrick and Kirkpatrick as branches of the Scottish clan Colquhoun. Three Kirkpatricks from Ulster were notable presbyterian clergymen. Some Kirkpatricks have abbreviated their name to Kirk, which in Munster is sometimes used as a synonym of Quirke.