This is a surname with many variants not only in old records but also in modern times. In the birth registrations of the years 1865-1866 it is spelt Mescal, Mescall, Mescill, Meskal, Meskel, Meskela, Meskell, Meskel, Miskill, Miskel, Miskela, Miskele, Miskella, Miskell, Miskle: of the 70 births then registered 39 were in Clare and south Galway and 10 in Co. Limerick, 8 in the area around west Waterford, east Cork and south Tipperary and 6 in Co. Wexford. There were also 14 for Miskelly all in northeast Ulster (see last paragraph of this section below). The current Co. Clare voters' lists show that the name is numerous there but the lists of freeholders in 1821 include only six and it is surprising how few references to the name in any form are to be found in earlier records relating to Co. Clare. Griffith's Valuation of a decade earlier than the birth registrations referred to above found hosueholders of the name also fairly numerous in Counties Wexford and Waterford. The name is infrequent in eighteenth century records; in the seventeenth Meskell was a name fairly prominent in the city of Cork and it occurs also in the Co. Tipperary hearth money rolls; and, going back to the Fiants of the sixteenth century we find three of the name in Co. Kilkenny and just one in the Co. Clare area. The earliest reference to it I have found occurs in a Justiciary Roll of 1313 dealing with Co. Limerick.

The indeterminate nature of the facts here collected no doubt accounts for the lack of information given by Woulfe under the head of Ó Meiscill. His treatment of Mac Scalaigh (anglice MacScally or Skally) is misleading: among its anglicized forms he gives Miskelly, Miscella and Miskella. There is, however, no doubt that Miscella and Miskella are synonymous with Miskell and Mescal; but Miskelly, which is a name practically confined to north Ulster, may be a northern corruption of MacScally.