James McNulty & Mary O'Connor

My grandmother was a McNulty who grew up in East Mayo, so I can add a bit more info to what Roger told you.

In Irish, the surname McNulty is Mac an Ultaigh, which literally means “son of the Ulsterman” (Ultach = Ulsterman, and Ultaigh is the genitive case of the word), but it may simply refer to descent from the Ulaid, a people for whom Ulster is named (in ancient Ireland, the Uluti tribe), which in remote times ruled the entirety of the North of Ireland.  According to MacLysaght’s “Surnames of Ireland”, the McNulty surname originated in County Donegal, and that is where the Mayo McNulty’s came from.

A family of McNulty's migrated to the Callow Lakes area in eastern Mayo in the 1640's, according to a history of the parish of Killasser (where Callow is located).  In the course of time, McNulty’s became numerous in East Mayo.  There are still McNulty’s in Donegal and nearby counties, and McNulty emigrants from Ulster are also known to have moved to Counties Louth and Meath (in Meath, they usually just use the name Nulty, however).  As it happens, my great-great-grandfather was named James McNulty, but he was born around 1800, so would be too old to be the same person as your James.  He had a son named Thomas (probably Tadhg), my great-grandfather, but I don't know the names of his other children.

As Roger noted, there are O'Connor's all over Ireland (there were, in fact, originally six separate "clans" of them).  There was a "clan" which originated in Connacht, I think originally in Sligo, so that might be the family of your Mary, since the parish of Killasser is right on the Mayo-Sligo border.  Of course, if they only met once they were in the US, she could have come from somewhere else in Ireland.

Thanks to both Roger and Kevin.  I have a copy of James' death certificate but it adds nothing about parentage or origin in Ireland.  I haven't obtained Mary's death certificate, but the form will likely be similar and will note only that she was born in Ireland.  Incidently, my daughter and I visited Killasser a few years back when she was studying in Derry.  That little village with one pub and one church is chock full of McNultys!  The only clue I left out of my earlier note was that Mary had an older brother Edward O'Connor who also emigrated at about the same time.  He dropped the "O" somewhere along the way.  So far, we don't know where in Ireland he started out from either.  Thanks again for your help.