Irish surnames starting with F

The F names in brief

• Fahy · Ó Fathaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Fathadh, 'foundation / green field'. A Uí Maine sept of the green plains around Loughrea, the name may mean 'of the lawn', whose parishes still cluster where their cattle once grazed.
• Fallon · Ó Fallamhain · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Fallamhan, 'leader'. From Fallamhan, a ruler. Woulfe records two families: a Leinster one, lords of Crioch na gCeadach around Castlejordan in Offaly, and the Connacht one, lords of Clann Uadach in the parishes of Camma and Dysart in the barony of Athlone.
• Farley · Ó Faircheallaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Faircheallach. Coarbs of St Mogue and erenaghs of Drumlane in County Cavan until the monastery was suppressed, and still very numerous throughout that county. Woulfe notes a second family in east Limerick, long since gone.
• Ferguson · Mac Fearghusa · Ulster Scots / Gaelic
  Son of Fearghus, 'man-strength'. Scots planters bearing an old Gaelic royal name from Ulster itself — Fearghus of the Ulaid legend. Belfast's Harry Ferguson invented the modern farm tractor and flew Ireland's first aeroplane.
• Finnegan · Ó Fionnagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Fionnagán, 'little fair one'. Border septs of the fair-haired; Joyce heard a ballad about a hod-carrier's whiskey-resurrection and built 'Finnegans Wake', the most famous unread book on Earth, on the name.
• Fitzgerald · Mac Gearailt · Norman dynasty
  Fitz Gerald — son of Gerald (of Windsor). The Geraldines: the greatest Norman house in Ireland, earls of Kildare and Desmond, by turns viceroys and rebels — 'more Irish than the Irish themselves'. JFK was one of theirs.
• Fitzgibbon · Mac Giobúin · Norman dynasty
  Son of Gibbon — Norman French fitz, 'son of', and a pet form of Gilbert. The White Knight's line, one of the three hereditary knighthoods of Munster. Woulfe disputes the usual Geraldine descent, making the Limerick family the heirs of Gilbert de Clare instead, and records a quite separate Mac Giobúin — a branch of the Burkes west of Croagh Patrick in Mayo.
• Fitzpatrick · Mac Giolla Phádraig · Gaelic dynasty (Norman-styled)
  Son of the devotee of Patrick. The only 'Fitz' name that is purely Gaelic: the royal house of Osraige, kings for 700 years, who re-badged their ancient name in Norman fashion to survive.
• Fitzsimons · Mac Síomóin · Norman
  Son of Simon. A Norman family of the Pale, not a Gaelic sept — the name began with individual sons of a Simon and hardened into a surname. Also Gaelicised as Mac an Ridire, 'son of the knight'.
• Flanagan · Ó Flannagáin · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Flannagán, 'little red one'. Royal stewards to the O'Connor kings of Connacht, with cousin-septs on Lough Erne; in America the name came to mean big-hearted priests, thanks to Roscommon-born Fr Edward Flanagan of Boys Town.
• Fleming · Pléimeann · Norman-Flemish
  'the Fleming' — from Flanders. Flemish knights who held Slane for five centuries; the last Baron Slane fell at the Boyne fighting for James. Weavers of the same name seeded the wool towns of the south.
• Flynn · Ó Floinn · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Flann, 'ruddy'. Septs in three provinces; the Cork O'Flynns held the rough country of Muskerry, the Roscommon branch kept the shrine of St Berach. A name that travelled everywhere the Irish went.
• Fogarty · Ó Fógartaigh · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Fógartach, 'the banished' or 'proclaimed'. Lords of Éile Uí Fhogartaigh in north Tipperary — a territory whose name survives to this day as the barony of Eliogarty, around Thurles.
• Foley · Ó Foghladha · Gaelic sept
  Descendant of Foghlaidh — 'the plunderer'. An honest surname: it means 'raider'. The Déisi sept spread through Munster; in America, Foleys ran everything from Montana copper to the House of Representatives.
• Forde · Mac Conshnámha / Mac Giolla na Naomh / Ó Fuaráin · Gaelic septs (several) & English settlers
  Three Irish names all mistranslated as 'ford': 'son of the swimming-hound' (Leitrim), 'son of the devotee of the saints' (Galway), 'descendant of Fuarthán, the cold one' (Cork). One English-looking name hiding several Irish septs. The Mac Conshnámha ruled Muintir Cionaith by Lough Allen in Leitrim; the Mac Giolla Naomh were a sept of south Connemara; the Ó Fuartháin belonged to Cork and Waterford.
• French · de Fréins · Norman
  'the Frenchman'. A Tribe of Galway that kept the archaic 'ffrench' spelling like a signature; Percy French of Roscommon later gave Ireland its best-loved comic songs — 'Come back, Paddy Reilly'.
• Furlong · Furlong · Norman-English
  From the furrow-length of a ploughed field. Yeomen of the Wexford baronies since the 1200s, so rooted in the county's English-dialect corner (Forth and Bargy) that their fields' very measure became their name.

Also spelled with F

These are listed on the atlas under another spelling, but the F form is the one many families carry.