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Origins Available: |
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The McCuigane surname appeared in Gaelic as Mag Uiginn, which is probably derived from a Norse forename. The name is usually pronounced as "McGwiggen" in it's homeland County Tyrone (especially around Omagh).
The surname McCuigane was first found in County Tyrone (Irish:Tír Eoghain), the ancient territory of the O'Neills, now in the Province of Ulster, central Northern Ireland, where they held a family seat from ancient times.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our McCuigane research. Another 71 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1616, 1659 and 1800 are included under the topic Early McCuigane History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Irish names were rarely spelled consistently in the Middle Ages. Spelling variations of the name McCuigane dating from that time include MacGuigan, MacGoogan, MacGougan,MacGookin, MacGuckin, MacGugan, MacQuiggan, MacWiggin, MacGucken, MacGuckian, MacGuiggan, MacGuighan and many more.
More information is included under the topic Early McCuigane Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
To escape the religious and political discrimination they experienced primarily at the hands of the English, thousands of Irish left their homeland in the 19th century. These migrants typically settled in communities throughout the East Coast of North America, but also joined the wagon trains moving out to the Midwest. Ironically, when the American War of Independence began, many Irish settlers took the side of England, and at the war's conclusion moved north to Canada. These United Empire Loyalists, were granted land along the St. Lawrence River and the Niagara Peninsula. Other Irish immigrants settled in Newfoundland, the Ottawa Valley, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The greatest influx of Irish immigrants, however, came to North America during the Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Thousands left Ireland at this time for North America and Australia. Many of those numbers, however, did not live through the long sea passage. These Irish settlers to North America were immediately put to work building railroads, coal mines, bridges, and canals. Irish settlers made an inestimable contribution to the building of the New World. Early North American immigration records have revealed a number of people bearing the Irish name McCuigane or a variant listed above, including: Andrew, Charles, Francis, Patrick, MacGucken, who all settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania between 1840 and 1870; Henry MacGuckian settled in Philadelphia in 1843.