Beannachtaí na Féile Páraic oraibh!

In honor of Saint Patrick's Day I thought I post a brief history of our irish Surname:
Hegarty, sometimes O'Hegarty but seldom Haggerty in Ireland (a form of the name found among Irish-Americans), is in Irish O hEigceartaigh (eigceartach means unjust). Though now associated principally with Co. Cork, the Hegartys of Munster are in fact a branch of the main O'Hegarty sept of the Cinel Eoghan which was located on the borders of the present counties of Donegal and Derry. In the fourteenth century the barony of Loughinsholin (Co. Derry) was their principal habitat; in the seventeenth they were more numerous in Tirkeeran (Co. Derry) and Inishowen (Co. Donegal) in the north, and in the baronies of Barrymore and Carbery West in Co. Cork. As is usually the case the present representatives of the sept are to be found in their traditional homeland and are to-day most numerous in Counties Cork, Donegal and Derry. The Ulster sept were subfeudatory to O'Neill's army. The 1691 attainders of O'Hegartys relate to those of Ulster. The records of persecuted priests in the seventeenth century also indicate the Ulster character of the sept up till modern times. The name appears very frequently in the annals of the Irish Brigades and among those who distinguished themselves particularly in this field was Lt. Col. Hegarty of Lally's Regiment, who for his service was rewarded in 1747 by Louis XV of France, while Peter O'Hegarty was made Governor of the Isle of Bourbon. Another Irish Hegarty in eighteenth century France, Daniel O'Hegarty, shipbuilder of Dunkirk, a Catholic, strange as this seems to us now, founded the first Freemason lodge in that country in 1721. According to Dr. Richard Hayes the main object of these lodges, which were largely composed of Jacobite exiles, was the restoration of the house of Stuart. In recent times the name has been less distinguished, though several Hegartys were prominent in the struggle for Irish Independence 1916-1921: of these P.S. O'Hegarty (1879-1955), who was an author of repute, is the best known. The place name Hegarty's Rock at Killygarvan near Lough Swilly commemorates the barbarous and treacherous murder of Father James Hegarty there in 1715.