Gallagher

We bought bookmarks that include the Gallagher family crest and these words:

"Gallagher--This is the Anglicised form of the Gaelic Ó Gallchobhair meaning 'descendant of Gallchobhar.' This personal name is formed from the elements 'gall' meaning 'strange or foreign' and 'cahbhair' for 'help or support'. It signifies descent from Gallagher, who himself was descended from the King of Ireland, who reigned 624-654. The motto for Gallagher is 'Fidelity is my Glory'."

If you search for the name online, you will see histories of the name/family/tribe. There are some variations (for examples, see here and here), but they tend to agree that the first sign of the name was in County Donegal (the far northwest of the island), that the Gallaghers are descended from kings, and their motto means "Fidelity is my Glory" or "My Faith is my Glory."

Obviously, at least one branch of the family relocated to Swinford in County Mayo. According to Wikipedia there was an infamous Gallagher in the area: "Captain Gallagher (died 1818) was an Irish highwayman who, as one of the later Irish Rapparees (guerrillas), led a bandit group in the hills of the Irish countryside, armed with the Blunderbuss of the day, during the late 18th and early 19th century....Born in Bonniconlon, County Mayo he lived with his aunt in Derryronane, Swinford for much of his early life and was raised near the woods of Barnalyra (roughly the location of modern-day Ireland West Airport Knock). As he reached early adulthood, he and a group of others began raiding mail coaches as well as wealthy landowners and travellers throughout eastern Mayo and parts of southern County Sligo and western County Roscommon...Gallagher and his men raided the home of an extremely unpopular landlord in Killasser and forced him to eat half a dozen eviction notices he had recently drawn up for nearly half a dozen tenant farmers before escaping with silver and other valuables."

We saw Gallagher signs pretty much everywhere we went. Which makes sense, as it is one of the top 20 surnames in Ireland. We took photos of a few of them.

Here is a repeat of the photo of Matt standing in front of Gallagher's Boxty Totally Irish (a restaurant) in Dublin:

This real estate sign for Boyce Gallagher was in Newton, Cunningham, County Donegal:

Barry Gallagher was running for a seat on the Sligo County Council as an Independent for the election held on 24 May 2019. Despite (or because of?) the fact that he had stenciled his campaign "signs" on the sidewalks and sides of buildings throughout the Tobercurry area, he was not successful.

And, of course, we saw many Gallagher headstones, especially in Kilconduff Cemetery in Swinford. We didn't usually photograph them unless we thought they might be directly related to Matt, but this one for Joe Gallagher made its way into a wider shot of the cemetery: