Irish surname search
(O)Corcoran, (Mac)Corcoran
The Irish forename Corcoran is derived from the Gaelic word Corcair, now used to denote purple but formerly meaning ruddy. The sept called MacCorcoran was of some importance in the Ely O'Carroll county: they were still people of substance in Offaly and Tipperary and Cork To-day. The O'Corcorans belonged to Fermanagh and produced a number of ecclesiastics from the eleventh to the fifteenth century whose field of activity was around Lough Erne. One of these was Bishop of Clogher in 1373. The name is rare there now: probably there was a westward migration as it is found in counties Mayo and Sligo. From the latter came Brigadier General Michael Corcoran (1827-1863), who recruited an Irish Legion in the United States in 1861. Edmund O'Corcoran, "the hero of Limerick" (I.e. the siege of 1691), was the subject of one of O'Carolan's well-known poems.