McTigue Coat of Arms, Family Crest and McTigue Family History

McTigue Family History

The family history of the ancient name McTigue was found in the irishsurnames.com archives.

Surnames developed a wide number of variants over the centuries. Many different spelling variations of the same name can be traced back to a single original root. Also, when a bearer of a name emigrated from Ireland it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books upon arrival at their new location. Some names have dozens of spelling variations. Some Surnames were also altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically, by their sound, and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another. This was especially so in Ireland where most Gaelic names were 'anglicized' at some stage.

Variants of the name McTigue include Tigue, Tighe, O'Tighe, McTague, Teage and McTeague. This name in Irish is MacTaidhg and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. This sept came from Mayo.

A sept or clan is a collective term describing a group of persons whose immediate ancestors bore a common surname and inhabited the same territory. It is also the case that many Irish septs or clans that are related often belong to a larger groups, sometimes called tribes. For example the 'Tribes of Galway' consisted of fourteen distinct families. The 'Tribes of Kilkenny' were ten families, etc.

The name was first formed from a Christian forename and occurs chiefly in the Western counties. They belonged to four distinct septs, one of these being in Ulster where they were erenaghs of Termonkenny in County Down. Another sept was located in County Wicklow but was later taken over by the O'Tooles. The third sept was located in Connacht, their Chief in 1228 was Chief of the household of the King of Connacht. The last sept was of Thomond and from this came Tadhg O'Taidhg, Bishop of Killaloe, 1083.The McTigue family crest (or coat of arms) came into existence many centuries ago. The process of creating these coats of arms began as early as the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this, including Ireland. The new more formalized art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own family crest, coat of arms, including McTigue descendants.