Gasaitear na hEireann/Gazetteer of Ireland gives Lothra as the Irish for Lorrha, the name of a Co Tipperary town, a parish and a townland.
This work supplies the Irish but not the meaning. Spelt Lothra, Loghera, Lorrah, Lurchoe, and Lothor down through the centuries, and c. 1436 it was rendered "de Fontis Vivi de Lochra". St Brendan made a foundation here before he moved to Clonfert; St Finian founded a monastery here, and later it became a priory of the Augustinian canons, but we have discovered no reference to the life-giving waters of the fountain.
Annala Rioghachta Eireann/ Annals of the Four Masters notes the death in 1050 of Maeldeuin O Eigceartaigh, erenagh of Lorrha (airchinn each, the name of a monastic office, later to become a lay office). This surname has been simplified to O hEigeartaigh and is Anglicised as (O) Hegarty. It derives from the word eigceartach, unjust.
And while nowadays one may change one's name by deed poll, in times gone by one's surname was supplied by others, according to their perception. A person then with a grudge against another might unjustly have named him Eigceartach - and deserved or not, it stuck!
However, one upon whom injustice was visited was Donogh Hagerty, "a Popist priest", who on August 10th, 1657, was "secured in the county gaol of Clonmel". And while he lay there, Thomas Gregson, Evan Powel and Samuel Ally, three soldiers of Col Abbot's regiment of Dragoons, were likely in some Clonmel inn drinking the £5 they had shared for his arrest.
One probably deserving of the unjust epithet was Jeremiah `Hegerty, Millstreet, Co Cork, described by the Millstreet Land League "as triply odious as a land grabber, landlord's `bum', and gombeen man". He was a prosperous shopkeeper who used his profits to acquire 12 holdings on the Wallis estate, of which he was a sub-agent. In 1880 he was formally boycotted, and in 1885 an unsuccessful attempt was made to assassinate him.
Robert Bell's Ulster Surnames says that though this surname is now common in Munster, those Hegartys were a branch of an Ulster sept whose homeland lay on the borders of Cos Derry and Donegal. We are not informed why or when they came to Munster, but the above Maelduin O hEigceartaigh was there prior to 1050.
The Phone Book of Northern Ireland contains 250 Hegerty entries, while directories south of the Border have 868 Hegerty entries, 10 O'Hegerty, and four O hEigeartaigh. They are most numerous in the Cork 02 area, and in the 07 area.
Listed among the pardoned in Co Cork fiants were: Dermot roe O Hagirtie, Clonecuile (1577); Conogher m'Deirmodie gire O Heagirtie and Donell m'Teige gire O Heagirtie, Garrane; Dermot roe O Heagirtie, Castledonovan; Conoghor O Heagirtie, Loghecrott; Conoghor oge O Heagirtie, Cowlaghe; Donell O Heagirtie, Doilis, and Katherine ny Heagirtie, Glanycronie, and James O Hegerte among the pardoned Birnes of Ballinacor, Co Wicklow (1601).
In 1602, Murtagh and Donnell O Hegertie m'Morris, Gillachrist O Heagertie, and Shane O Heagirtie were among the pardoned of Inishowen, Co Donegal.
The 1659 A Census of Ireland lists O Hegertie among the principal Irish surnames in the Co Derry barony of Tirkeenan, in the Co Donegal barony of Inishowen, and in the Co Cork baronies of Barrymore, and Carbery East Division. Owners of Land of One Acre and Up- wards (1876) shows three modest Hagerty holdings in Co Antrim; three similar Hegerty holdings in Co Cork; two in Co Clare; two in Co Meath, and the 1,256 acres of Edmund Hagerty, Borris, Co Carlow.
"The records of persecuted priests in the 17th century also indicate the Ulster character of the sept up till modern times" (MacLysaght's Irish Families).
"The name appears very frequently in the annals of the Irish Brigades and among those who distinguished themselves particularly in this field was Lt-Col Hegarty, of Lally's Regiment." The surname O hEigeartaigh is listed nine times in Beathaisneis (Diarmuid Breathnach & Maire Ui Mhurchu).
Best-known of several Heg artys prominent in the struggle for Irish Independence, 191621, was Cork-born P.S. O'Hegarty, an author of repute. His son, Sean O hEigeartaigh (1917-1967), together with his wife, Brighid Ni Mhaoileoin, founded Sairseal agus Dill to publish books in Irish.
Padraig O hEigeartaigh (1871-1936) was the author of the heart-rending poem Ochon, a Dhonnchadh, written on the drowning of his son. Born near Waterville, Co Kerry, he was taken to America at the age of 12. He married a Conamara woman, reared their family through Irish in Springfield, Massachusetts, and devoted his life to all things Irish, particularly the language.