Birth registration statistics show 30 for the year 1890, mainly in counties Dublin, Waterford and Tyrone - only one was recorded in Connacht. In 1864, 53 births were registered for Hannigan (including Hanagan and other spelling variants); rather more scattered than in 1890, the majority were in the Tyrone-Fermanagh area or in east Munster. Ó hannagáin is given as the Irish form. The earliest reference met is 1556 when John Hannigane of Waterford city obtained "English liberty." A generation later the name occured among jurymen and trade guild officials in Dublin and also in lnishowen pardons, so that in the sixteenth century it was found approximately in the areas assigned to it by modern statistics. Later it is found as a principal Irish name in the barony of Decies, Co. Waterford, in the 1659 census and in eighteenth century wills in Waterford, south Tipperary and Limerick. In Dublin James Hannigan was warden of the Guild of St. John the Baptist (merchant tailors) in 1752-53. David Henegan, who helped in the revision and publication of O'Brien's Irish dictionary in Paris in 1768 was a Cork man: in 1774 he founded the course for Cork students in the Lombard College, Paris. Ó hAnnacháin, anglicized Hannahan is a variant of Ô hAnnagáin. The name appeared in the Fiants in the person of Conor McShane Y Haneghan of Clonlare, Co. Limerick, who was pardoned and fined one cow in 1577.