The name Fivey presents a remarkable example of the absurd pseudo-translations which have disguised some fine Gaelic Irish surnames. I am informed by Father Ó Gallochair that in the case of Fivey this arose from the fancied resemblance of the Coig in Ó Coigligh to the word cuig (i.e. the numeral five). Ó Coigligh is normally anglicized Quigley. A similar statement regarding Fivey is made by Padraig MacGiolla Domhnaigh in his Some Anglicized Surnames in Ireland: he adds that Quigg, Twigg .and Twigley are also anglicized forms of Quigley, and mentions that there are three septs of the name in Ulster – located in Inishowen, * Co. Donegal, in Loughinsholin, Co. Derry, and in south Monaghan.

Quigg and O'Quigg occur quite frequently in the seventeenth century hearth money rolls for counties Derry and Antrim; and it appears from birth registrations that these abbreviations are still fairly widespread in Co. Derry and adjacent areas. It is not unknown also as a Mac name: one James MacQuigge, whom the writer of a Gaelic manuscript now in the British Museum describes as a “vulgar pedant”, was notorious in Ulster about the year 1815. In the form of Fivey the name belongs principally to Co.

Down. Those who adopted it appear to have been well-to-do in the eighteenth century; three, all born in that county (the earliest in 1761) were students of Dublin University; and two relevant Prerogative wills may be mentioned, those of Thomas Fivey of Loughbrickland, Co. Down (1767) and William Fivey of Dublin (1775).

Fives, a surname found in Counties Waterford and Cork, is, I think, of English origin, probably an abbreviation of Fiveash.