Irish Family Names H
O'HALLORAN
NAME ON MAP: O'hALLMHURAIN MODERN COUNTY: Galway MEANING: `descendant of Allmhurán'. (The name, deriving from all `beyond' and muir `the sea', meant `foreigner, stranger'.)
O'HANLON
NAME ON MAP: O'hANLUAIN MODERN COUNTY: Armagh MEANING: `descendant of Anluan'. (The name came from `an', an intensive prefix akin to `very, great', and `luan' which meant `light, radiance' and also `a champion'.) The Munster sept sprang up after the date of this map.
O'HANRAHAN, HOURIHANE
NAME ON MAP: O'hANRADHAIN MODERN COUNTY: Clare MEANING: `descendant of Anradhán'. (The name derived from anradh `champion, hero' and the diminutive suffix án.)
O'HARA
NAME ON MAP: O'hEAGHRA MODERN COUNTY: Sligo MEANING: `descendant of Eaghra'. Eaghra (the meaning of the name is uncertain) was of the family of the legendary King Olioll Olun of Munster. After 1350 the sept split into two as O'Hara Boy (buide `tawny') and O'Hara Reagh (riadhach `grizzled') and a branch settled in Antrim.
O'HEA, HAYES, HUGHES (in Ulster)
NAME ON MAP: O'hAODHA MODERN COUNTY: Cork MEANING: `descendant of Aodh'. (The name meant `fire'.) There were a dozen unrelated septs. A Murrough O'Hea was Bishop of Cork in 1205.
O'HEALY
NAME ON MAP: O'hÉALAIGHTHE MODERN COUNTIES: Cork, Sligo MEANING: `descendant of Éaladhach'. (The name possibly derived from éaladhach `ingenious'.) A less important sept in Sligo (not shown on the map), also giving the modern O'Healy, was called O'hÉlidhe (`descendant of Éilidhe'), a name deriving from Élidhe `claimant'. A Dermot O'hÉlidhe was described as a `princely farmer, the best of his age' in 1308.
O'HENNESSY, HENCHY
NAME ON MAP: O'hAONGHUSA MODERN COUNTY: Offaly MEANING: `descendant of Aonghus (Angus)'. Richard Hennessy, born 1720, was exiled to France, to the great benefit of the brandy industry. See the entry for MacGuinness.
O'HIGGINS
NAME ON MAP: O'hUIGUINN MODERN IRISH NAME: O'hUigín MODERN COUNTY: Sligo MEANING: `descendant of Uigínn'. (The name in OLD IRISH was akin to NORSE Víkingr `sea rover'.) The sept had moved from central Ireland to Sligo by 1330. The poet Tadhg Mór O'hUigínn died in 1315.
O'HOGAN
NAME ON MAP: O'hO'GAIN MODERN COUNTY: Tipperary MEANING: `descendant of O' gán'. O'gán was himself descended from the nephew of Brian Boru. (The name derived from óg `young' and the diminutive suffix án.) See the entry for O'Brien.