This name is fairly common in Counties Galway and Cavan but rare elsewhere (except in the City of Dublin where, of course, names from all parts of Ireland are to be found). It was formerly MacTully, and the form MacAtilla is used to-day in some places which suggests that the name in Irish was MacTuile or Mac a'tuile, meaning son of the flood; and it is a fact that the surnames Tully and Flood were at one time interchangeable and that what has been termed a mistranslation may indeed be a translation. In the Elizabethan Fiants we find Dionysius Flood alias Donough O'Multilly. O'Multilly, spelt O'Moltolle in another case, is O Maoltuile in Irish. it has been stated by usually reliable authorities that MacTuile is a corruption of O Maoltuile and that the latter is the real name of the celebrated medical family, but the form Mac Tuile appears in a seventeenth century manuscript which is a copy by a well-known scribe of a thirteenth century manuscript. The original, written by an eye witness of the inauguration of Cathal O'Connor, last King of Connacht, describes MacTully (Mac Tuile) who was present as O'Connor's physician. The MacTullys were in fact hereditary physicians not only to the O'Connors but also to the O'Reillys of Breffny. This accounts for the modern distribution of the name given above. The place-name Tullystown near Granard is associated with the Breffny branch of the family. The Tullys listed in the 1691 attainders are all of Co. Galway and the leading family whose arms are illustrated on Plate XXVII are of that county. The same arms are used by the Floods of Co. Kilkenny. some floods are of English extraction, but in Ireland they are mainly O Maoltuile or Mac Maoltuile, abbreviated to mac anTuile or MacTuile, anglicized MacAtilla or MacTully as well as Flood. Tuile means flood, but probably it is here for toile - genitive of toil, will, I.e. the will of God. O'Thina is reported from Co. Galway (Cong district) as entered in a birth registration by a family usually called Flood. The Irish in this case is O Tuine, for O Tuile, which is a colloquial contraction of the original form. (see Above). O'Thina has no connexion with the surname Thynne. This Co. Clare name is there pronounced Tyne and was formerly so spelt, e.g. Dermot O'Tine of Kilshanny (the homeland of this Irish sept) whose outlawry as a Jacobite was reversed in 1699. It is O Tiemhin in Irish and has no connexion with a similar English name pronounced Thin. A notable member of the Clare sept was Andrew Joseph Thynne (1847-1927) who as lawyer, politician and soldier was a prominent figure in Queensland, Australia, for more than forty years. The most noteworthy of the Tullys was Father Fiacre Tully, O.F.M. who in the years 1625-1631 was extremely active in Rome in the Irish interest. The Floods of Co. Kilkenny are said to be of English extraction. To this family belonged two notable politicians: Sir Frederick Flood (1741-1824) and Henry Flood (1732-1791), both prominent as Volunteers and opponents of the Union, and latter one of the outstanding personalities of eighteenth century Ireland. The distinguished Rev. Dr. Peter Flood (d. 1803), President of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, on the other hand, give that measure some support. William Henry Grattan Flood (1867-1928), author of the History of Irish Music, was a noted composer of liturgical music. Tully, alias Tally, is also the anglicized form of the Irish surname O Taithligh borne by a sept located near Omagh, Co. Tyrone, of which, however, little trace remains to-day. They were erenaghs of Devernish.