Wynne, Wynn
Wynne, Wynn—These two names are the anglicised forms of two Irish sept names. In the districts about Boyle and Manorhamilton the name Guihen (O'Gaoithín); in the districts about Carrick-on-Shannon the name Guiheen, a form of the first, are changed to Wynne and Wynn.
In the districts about Bawnboy, Co. Cavan, and other parts of that County and its Southern borders the names Magee and M'Gee (O'Maolghaoithe) have been changed to Wynne. This name Mulgee, changed to Magee and M'Gee in Co. Cavan and the borders of the adjoining Counties to the South, was the name of an ancient sept in Co. Donegal, occupying a district to the North of that County, and it is very probable that the sept migrated South to Cavan about the time of the Confiscation of Ulster, or after the Siege of Derry, as at that time some few Co. Donegal septs followed South in the retreat of James II., and settled in Fews, Co. Armagh, one of the septs being O'Toner, the Fews district of Armagh being, at that time and since, the refuge of many broken septs.
The reasons that Mulgee or M'Gee and Guihin changed their names to Wynne arises, it may be safely presumed, from the word Gaoth, wind, entering into the construction of both names. It may be mentioned that this sept of M'Gee and Magee in Co. Cavan have no origin nor connection in common with the North-East Ulster sept of Magee and M'Gee; correctly written Mag Aoidh, as this Ulster sept came to Co. Antrim from Kintyre in the early part of the 16th century with the McDonnells, at the time when Sorley Boy McDonnell was Lord of all the McDonnells of Antrim, Argyle, and the Isles.