I have two documented sources of information on the Irish Dinns, or Dunnes as they were known

First is a letter from Paddy Dunne to me in 1996. Click here to view it. Paddy says that my grandfather William's parents were Patrick Dunne and Honora Reied. So William would have been a Dunne. However at his marriage in Bradford he was calling himself (and his father Patrick) Dinn. See the certificate by clicking here. Note that Paddy says the first use of "Dinn" in Ireland was in 1911 at his parents wedding.

The second source I have is formal research by the Offaly Historical & Archaeological Society on my behalf in 1998. This confirms Paddy's information and extends it. Click here for a scanned image of the first page, and here for the full letter in scanned, OCR'd and HTML'd form. The letter also includes links to Family Group Sheets.