O'Dooley

It is difficult to sate which variation of names came first and O'Dooley is a variation, or vice versa, of O'Dowling. It's all in the hearing of how a name is pronounced. There was also no 'official' way of spelling a name years ago so no-one was wrong! Just like with Dowling the 'O' has been dropped and the name Dooley can be found commonly in Offaly (King's County) and Leix (Queen's County). If hunting for instances of this name you should look at must of the variations but in particular Dooly. Baptism registers regularly have the same families with different spellings.

If it is not a variation of another name O'Dooley's origin is from the Lords of Fertullagh on the south east of the County of Westmeath in Ireland. These Chiefs were living in that area in and around the eleventh and twelfth centuries and were then called the O'Dubhlaoich or O'Dublaich.

They were forced to move to the Ely O'Carroll, to the west of the Slieve Bloom Mountains, County Offaly, by the O'Melaghlins and Tyrells. There is also some evidence the past existence of Dooleys (by the ancient name of O'Dubhalla') in Muskerry in County Cork.

There appears to be no ancient Arms connected with the name.

 

O'Dolan

This name is common today in Ulster particularly in the Catholic areas of Cavan and Fermanagh and the Counties of Roscommon and Galway in Connacht.  The origin of this sept appears to be around Galway as a branch of the Ui Maine (Hi Many).  The Irish spelling of the name is so similar it can be confused easily in antiquity but I have found no examples in the 19th century records of people confusing the anglicised versions of Dowling and Dolan

Source: Annala Rioghachta Eireann. Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters ... to 1616. Ed. by John O'Donovan Dublin 1851. from Irish Families- Their Names and Origins, Edward MacLysaght (1972) Allen Figgis and Co Ltd.