Origin of the Name Furey
The origin of the name
Furey was found in the allfamilycrests.com archives.
Over the centuries Surnames developed a wide number of variants. Different spellings of the same name can be traced back to an original root. Additionally when a bearer of a name emigrated it was not uncommon that their original name would be incorrectly transcribed in the record books at their new location. Surnames were also often altered over the years based on how they sounded phonetically and depending on the prevailing political conditions it may have been advantageous to change a name from one language to another.
Variants of the name Furey
include Fury and Feore. The name in Irish is O'Fiodhabhra and the latter variants are the anglicized forms of this. This sept came from Westmeath.
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. Irish septs and clans that are related often belong to even larger groups, sometimes called tribes.
They were located in the barony of Clonlonan, County Westmeath and were a branch of the Royal O'Melaghlins. By the year 1659 they were in considerable numbers and at the end of the sixteenth century families of the name had crossed the Shannon and settled in East Galway . The sept produced several distinguished Churchmen, the most notable of whom was Donat O'Fidhabhra, 1237, who was Bishop of Clogher and Archbishop of Armagh.
The Furey coat of arms came into existence centuries ago. The process of creating coats of arms (also often called family crests) began in the eleventh century although a form of Proto-Heraldry may have existed in some countries prior to this. The new art of Heraldry made it possible for families and even individual family members to have their very own coat of arms, including all Furey descendants.