Here’s an excerpt from Jake Mooney’s column:

I had always seen the place and wondered about it, whether there was
some distant family relationship. If there is, it is distant enough
that neither Kevin Mooney nor I know about it; he was born in County
Galway, in Ireland, whereas my grandfather’s family came to New York
from Scotland in the early part of the 20th century. It’s definitely an
Irish name, though, so it seems as my family’s Mooneys did some
bouncing from island to island long ago. So you never know -– I read
once that, mathematically speaking, we can all claim descent from Nefertiti and Confucius anyway.