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The Irish name O'Gaughant has a long Gaelic heritage to its credit. The original Gaelic form of the name O'Gaughant is Mag Eachain.
The surname O'Gaughant was first found in County Londonderry (Irish: Doire), a Northern Irish county also known as Derry, in the province of Ulster, where they held a family seat from very ancient times.
This web page shows only a small excerpt of our O'Gaughant research. Another 67 words (5 lines of text) covering the years 1641, 1730, 1747, 1761 and 1804 are included under the topic Early O'Gaughant History in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
Within the archives researched, many different spelling variations of the surname O'Gaughant were found. These included One reason for the many variations is that scribes and church officials often spelled an individual's name as it sounded. This imprecise method often led to many versions. Gahan, Gaghan, Gagham, Getham, Gaham, Gahame and others.
Notable amongst the family name at this time was William Gahan (1730-1804), Irish ecclesiastic and author, born in Dublin in June 1730. He was of a Leinster sept, the original name of which was O'Gaoithin, anglicised Gahan. He was educated at Dublin, became a member of the Augustinian order there, and in 1747 entered the Catholic university of Louvain, where he studied for eleven...
Another 64 words (5 lines of text) are included under the topic Early O'Gaughant Notables in all our PDF Extended History products and printed products wherever possible.
The 19th century saw a great wave of Irish families leaving Ireland for the distant shores of North America and Australia. These families often left their homeland hungry, penniless, and destitute due to the policies of England. Those Irish immigrants that survived the long sea passage initially settled on the eastern seaboard of the continent. Some, however, moved north to a then infant Canada as United Empire Loyalists after ironically serving with the English in the American War of Independence. Others that remained in America later joined the westward migration in search of land. The greatest influx of Irish immigrants, though, came to North America during the Great Potato Famine of the late 1840s. Thousands left Ireland at this time for North America, and those who arrived were immediately put to work building railroads, coal mines, bridges, and canals. In fact, the foundations of today's powerful nations of the United States and Canada were to a larger degree built by the Irish. Archival documents indicate that members of the O'Gaughant family relocated to North American shores quite early: John Gahan who landed in Pennsylvania in 1773; followed by James in 1842; another John in 1856; and Patrick in 1867; William Gahan settled in Boston Massachusetts in 1818..