This name, with variant spellings (o) Fogerty, Foggarty, Fogaty, Gogarty and Go(g)erty, is an Anglicized form of the old Gaelic "O Fogartaigh". The Gaelic prefix "o" indicates "male descendant of", plus the personal byname "Fogartach" meaning "banished" or "exiled". The Fogartys are of the ancient population group, Dal gCais, otherwise known as the Dalcassians, who inhabited county Clare with adjacent parts of counties Limerick and Tipperary. Eliogarty, the name of a barony in Co. Tipperary, locates the sept, and indicates their importance. The majority of present day namebearers are found in county Tipperary and Malachy O' Fogarty, of the University of Paris, who flourished in 1700, was born at Castle Fogarty in that county. Another notable namebearer was Archbishop Fogarty (1858 - 1955), who for fifty-one years was Bishop of Killaloe. A Coat of Arms granted to the family depicts two gold lions rampant on a blue shield supporting a gold sheaf of corn, the latter denoting plenty and the Harvest of One's Hopes. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of O' Fogarty, King of Ely, County Tipperary, which was dated 1072, "The Annals of Ulster", during the reign of High King of Ireland, "with opposition", 1022 - 1166. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling.

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