During the latter part of the third century there was a king of Munster in Ireland by the name of O'Brien. For twenty years he traveled extensively throughout Europe. He came to be known by the name of Seadhal which translated means "The Gracious". Upon returning to his kingdom he changed his name from Brien to Shiel which is a modernized Irish form of the same name. The Latin form of Shiel is Seduiluis.It is not known for certain how the name eventually came to be Shields, but there are two reasons why it could have been. There was an intermarriage between the Shiel family and the reigning family of Denmark whose name was Scyld. Translated this name would be Shield. Because the Shiels family was Protestant they anglicized the name of Shiel because the English were the promoters of the reformation. If the book called the "Four Master" could be found, it contains much of the Shields family records. Also in Rooney's Aristocracy at the time of the reformation there is a history of the Shields family.
The names Shields, Shield, O'Shield, O'Shiel, Shiels and many others are names of the same origin.
Reference unknown.
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Shields, O Siodhail, O Sheil
There are a variety of spellings of this distinguished name, which derives from an ancestor called Siadhail. Reputed to be descendants of the famed King Niall of the Nine Hostages, their homelands were originally in Donegal, Derry, Antrim and Down. A branch also settled in Offaly.
Medicine, rather than territorial aggrandisement, was their chosen vocation and, through the generations, they were physicians to many important chieftains.
In the sixteenth century, Murtagh O Sheil, their most outstanding physician, looked after the health of the MacCoughlans. Murtagh's was the branch of the family which settled in Offaly, at Bally sheil.
Henry VIII elevated Connach O Shiel, who was the abbot of Ballisodare, to the bishopric of Elphin.
An O Sheil family who escaped to the haven of France following the Jacobite defeats in Ireland settled in Nantes, where they integrated with the French aristocracy.
In the eighteenth century there were two distinguished Sheil brothers: Richard Lalor Sheil, who was very active in the cause of Catholic emancipation, and Sir Justin Sheil, a soldier and diplomat.
James Shields (1800-1879) left Tyrone for the USA, where he became a supreme court judge. He was a brigadier general in the Mexican War, a Senator for Illinois, and he fought on the Unionist side in the American Civil War.
George Shiels (1886-1949) left Antrim for Canada, where he was crippled as a result of a railway accident. Returning to Ireland, confined to his home, he wrote a series of plays, several of which were successfully produced at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
Arthur Shields (1896-1970) of Dublin took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and afterwards acted at the Abbey Theatre. Because of poor health he went to California, where he continued acting in films and television. His brother, William Shields, was a civil servant when he took up amateur theatricals. He adopted the name Barry Fitzgerald--and became an Oscar-winning star in the USA!
Several biographies and pedigrees have been compiled of the Shields who emigrated to the USA.
Reference: the "Dictionary of Irish Family Names by Ida Grehan.
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The modern Shields family had its origin in the antiquity of the Emerald Isles many generations before the existence of William Shields (b. 1600 Armagh, Antrim, Ireland). The surname is an Anglicized version of Siadhail, a family that was transplanted from the European mainland perhaps as early as 1000 years before Christ. Members of the Siadhail sept went northward from Meath into Ulster relatively late in Irish History. The family presence in the Ulster area is evident before the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Source: Misty Spinelli 'Kin of my Grandchildren, Vol III', Judge Noble K. Littell, 1992, p 3, 7. 'Shields Family', Christine B. Brown, 6 February 1980, p 39.
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