Irish surnames starting with A

The A names in brief

• Adams · Mac Ádhaimh · Ulster Scots / Gaelic
  Son of Adam. A border name on both sides of every Irish border: planter Adamses of Antrim's mills, Gaelic Mac Ádhaimh of Cavan, and the US presidents' distant Ulster kin.
• Ahern · Ó hEachthighearna · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Eachthighearna, 'lord of horses'. Eachthighearn is a horse-lord: each, a horse, and tighearna, a lord. A Dál gCais family out of Clare who moved south and settled the river valleys of Cork, and Woulfe finds the name common in Cork and Limerick, where it becomes Aherne, and in Waterford, where the same name is written Hearne and looks like a different one altogether.
• Archer · Áirséir · Norman
  The bowman. One of Kilkenny's ten merchant tribes; Archer money, Archer mayors and an Archer Jesuit who ran guns for O'Neill — a city family with a soldier's name.
• Aylward · Aighleart · Norse-English
  Æthel-weard, 'noble guardian'. Waterford merchant princes of Viking-age English stock; an Aylward refused Cromwell's summons at Passage and lost everything — the name endures where the ships once did.