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(Mac)Gorman, (O)Gorman

this name is of particular interest philologically because although it is (with rare exceptions) really a Mac name it is almost always found today - when not plain Gorman - as O'Gorman. This can be accounted for by the fact that in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the native Irish were in complete subjection, the Gaelic prefixes Mac and O were universally allowed to fall into disuse, particularly in the case of some names like Gorman; then, when the spirit of the nation revived, these prefixes were gradually restored, but so completely had the form MacGorman fallen into oblivion that its rightful bearers when resuming a prefix assumed the wrong one and became O'Gorman, with the result that MacGormans are hardly to be found at all in Ireland today except in Co. Monaghan. O'Gormans are found chiefly in Co. Clare, while plain Gorman is more usual in Co. Tipperary. The Irish form is Mac Gormain (derived from gorm, blue). Originally this sept inhabited the barony of Slievemargy in Co. Leix near the town of Carlow, of which their chief was lord, but they were driven out at the Norman invasion and settled in Ibrickan, West Clare, and in Co. Monaghan. In the former they attained considerable influence and the head of the sept became hereditary marshal to O'Brien of Thomond. The MacGormans of Ibrickan were noted especially in the fifteenth century for their wealth, hospitality and for their patronage of the Gaelic poets. There are ten townlands called Gormanstown lying in Counties Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Wicklow, Limerick and Tipperary and two called Gormanston in Counties Dublin and Meath. Gormanston in the parish Stamullen, Co. Meath, appears as Villa Macgorman in a cartulary of Llanthony of c. 1200. Probably the man chiefly responsible for the substitution of O for Mac in the name was the celebrated gigantic Chevalier Thomas O'Gorman (1725-1808), exile vineyard owner in France, who, after being ruined by the French Revolution, became a constructor of Irish pedigrees. Several O'Gormans were prominently associated with Irish politics, notably Nicholas Purcell O'Gorman (1778-1857), secretary of the Catholic Association, and Richard O'Gorman (1820-1895), the Young Irelander. The original name has a place in the roll of distinguished Irishmen, in the early days before the prefix was dropped, in the person of Finn MacGorman who was bishop of Kildare 1148-1160 and is famous as the compiler of "The book of Leinster.