Maher

Language & meaning

Meaning & Irish forms

Gaelic Gaelic Irish: a single Tipperary family, Ó Meachair of Ikerrin, of the same stock as the O'Carrolls of Éile.^[1][2]

The name is built on the personal name Meachar, usually explained as “hospitable”. Woulfe glosses Meachar as 'hospitable'; Wikipedia gives 'kind, generous or hospitable'.^[1][2]

Place

Where the Mahers lived

How common the name was in each county, as a share of the population, in the three surviving full censuses of Ireland. Use the buttons to compare years.

Origins

Septs & territories

Many Irish surnames were adopted independently by unrelated families. These are the distinct Maher lineages described in the sources.

A surname can point you towards a place. On its own, it cannot establish a pedigree.

The name over time

History

One family, two spellings

Woulfe describes only one Gaelic family behind the name Maher. Ó Meachair, 'descendant of Meachar', belonged to Uí Chairín in north Tipperary, and Woulfe explains the personal name as meaning 'hospitable'. In English the name settled into two main spellings, Maher and Meagher, alongside rarer forms such as O'Maher and O'Meagher. Wikipedia notes that the name Maher also occurs in the Arab world as a separate given name and surname, which accounts for some bearers outside Ireland.^[1][2][5]

Lords of Ikerrin

The territory of Uí Chairín survives as the barony of Ikerrin, whose chief town is Roscrea and which is bordered on three sides by Offaly and Laois. Woulfe treats the O'Meaghers as kinsmen of the O'Carrolls of Ely O'Carroll, and Wikipedia counts Ikerrin as part of Ely O'Fogarty, the southern lordship of the old kingdom of Éile. Their chief seat was at Druim Saileach, five miles or so south of Roscrea, the site of the later castle of Moydrum. Burke names the family's eponym as Meachar, one of their early chieftains.^[4][1][3][6]

Under the Earls of Ormond

Soon after the Anglo-Norman invasion, Ikerrin was brought within Ormond. The O'Meaghers were not expelled. Instead, as Woulfe and Wikipedia both describe, they stayed on their lands as tributaries of the Earl of Ormond, a position they shared with the O'Fogartys of neighbouring Eliogarty. A Colonel O'Meagher was still commanding one of Edmund O'Dwyer's Tipperary regiments against the Cromwellian army in 1651.^[1][3][7]

Spreading through the south-east

From their base at the foot of the Devil's Bit the family spread widely. Woulfe found them flourishing in his own day across Tipperary and into Kilkenny and Carlow. He also records a Tipperary family of O'Donovans who were of O'Maher stock, quite separate from the O'Donovans of Cork. In the 19th century the name was carried abroad by emigrants such as Margaret Maher, who worked for decades in the household of Emily Dickinson, and the Galway-born boxer Peter Maher, who claimed a world heavyweight title in America in 1895.^{[1][8][9][10][11]}

A hurling name

Maher has a long association with hurling in Tipperary and Kilkenny. Mikey Maher of Tubberadora captained Tipperary to All-Ireland titles in 1895, 1896 and 1898, and in recent years Pádraic Maher of Thurles Sarsfields has lined out at centre-back for the county. In Kilkenny, Fr Tommy Maher of Gowran played for the county and then trained and coached the Kilkenny senior team for more than twenty years, a spell that brought seven All-Ireland titles. Wikipedia's list of people with the surname includes many more hurlers, many recorded with the Irish form Ó Meachair.^{[12][13][14][5]}

Places linked to the name

• Ikerrin (Uí Chairín), Co. Tipperary — The barony that preserves the name of the O'Meagher lordship; its chief town is Roscrea.^[4][1]
• Moydrum (Druim Saileach) (Druim Saileach), Co. Tipperary — Seat of the O'Meagher chief, about five miles south of Roscrea, where Moydrum Castle later stood.^[1]
• Roscrea (Ros Cré), Co. Tipperary — The chief town of Ikerrin, near the old O'Meagher seat.^[4][1]
• Devil's Bit (Bearnán Éile), Co. Tipperary — The mountain at whose foot Woulfe placed the original O'Meagher territory.^[8][1]

Everyday lives

The Mahers in the census

Who the Mahers were in the 1901 and 1911 censuses (and 1926 where recorded), set against everyone in Ireland in the same census.

Mahers All of Ireland Ireland's figure marked on the Maher bar

Given names

First names among the Mahers

All three censuses combined. Top five in 1926: John, Patrick, James, Michael, Thomas; Mary, Margaret, Bridget, Annie, Ellen.

Spellings

Spellings

This page combines the spellings below, which census enumerators and families used for the same name.

Related forms

• Meagher, O'Meagher — The same surname; Woulfe lists Meagher alongside Maher as English forms of Ó Meachair.^[1]
• O'Maher, Magher — Older spellings recorded by Woulfe.^[1]
• Mahar, Meaher, Marr — Further anglicised forms listed by Wikipedia. The guitarist Johnny Marr, born Maher, adopted Marr to make his name easier to pronounce.^[2][15]

Diaspora

The Mahers abroad

Emigration carried the name worldwide. In the 2010 United States census:

Source: US Census Bureau, 2010 surname file (public domain).

Heraldry

Is there a Maher coat of arms?

People

Notable people named Maher

• Nicholas Maher (died 1851)
  Repeal Association politician elected MP for Tipperary.
• Margaret Maher (1841–1924)
  Irish-born domestic worker who served for many years in the household of the poet Emily Dickinson.
• Peter Maher (1869–1940)
  Galway-born boxer and Irish heavyweight champion who claimed the world heavyweight title in 1895.
• Mikey Maher (1874–1947)
  Tubberadora hurler who captained Tipperary to three All-Ireland titles in the 1890s.
• Patrick Maher (c. 1889–1921)
  IRA member executed in Mountjoy Prison in 1921.
• Tommy Maher (1922–2015)
  Kilkenny priest and hurler who coached the county to seven All-Ireland titles.
• T. J. Maher (1922–2002)
  Tipperary farmers' leader, founding member of the National Farmers' Association and politician.
• Joseph Maher (1933–1998)
  Irish actor and playwright, three times nominated for a Tony Award.
• Alice Maher (born 1956)
  Contemporary Irish artist working in sculpture, photography and installation.
• Bill Maher (born 1956)
  American comedian and host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.
• Johnny Marr (born 1963)
  Guitarist of the Smiths, born John Maher in Manchester to Irish parents from Kildare.
• Pádraic Maher (born 1989)
  Thurles Sarsfields and Tipperary hurler, usually at centre-back.

Questions

Questions about the Maher name

Evidence

Sources

1. Patrick Woulfe, Ó Meachair, in Irish Names and Surnames (1923)
2. Wikipedia, Ó Meachair (2026)
3. Wikipedia, Éile (2026)
4. Wikipedia, Ikerrin (2026)
5. Wikipedia, Maher (surname) (2026)
6. Sir Bernard Burke, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales (1884). Entries 'O'Meagher (a Sept whose Chief ruled over Hy-Cairin)' and 'Maher (Ballinkeele, co. Wexford)'.
7. Wikipedia, Edmund O'Dwyer (2026)
8. Wikipedia, Devil's Bit (2026)
9. Patrick Woulfe, Ó Donnabháin, in Irish Names and Surnames (1923)
10. Wikipedia, Margaret Maher (2026)
11. Wikipedia, Peter Maher (boxer) (2026)
12. Wikipedia, Mikey Maher (2026)
13. Wikipedia, Pádraic Maher (2026)
14. Wikipedia, Tommy Maher (2026)
15. Wikipedia, Johnny Marr (2026)
16. Wikipedia, Ilona Maher (2026)
17. Census of Ireland 1901 and 1911, and Census of Population 1926, National Archives of Ireland. Counts compiled by surnames.ie from the irishcensus.com transcription (dataset 20260831130351). 1926 data © National Archives of Ireland, CC BY 4.0.
18. Irish forms cross-checked against Gaois surname data (Fiontar & Scoil na Gaeilge, DCU).

How we compile these figures: methodology.