Below is a little story copied from a web site giving information about Ireland. One of the features of the site is reports on various Irish names. I have no information on the reliability of this story. I found interesting the report that Beatty is synonymous with MacCaffrey. The town Athlone appears to be important to Beatty heritage. It is on the River Shannon in County Westmeath. It is near the geographic center of the island. --Earl Beaty, L-13 ========================================== BEATTY, Betagh There are many people named called Beatty or Beattie in Ireland - an approximate estimate puts the number at 4,000. Eighty per cent of these are in northeast Ulster and are the descendants of Scottish settlers of the seventeenth century. Beatty is a Scottish form of Batey, which is an abbreviation of the Christian name Bartholomew. In the rest of the country they may be of that origin, or alternatively belong to families formerly called Betagh (also speltt Betaghe, Beatagh, Bettagh etc.) The early form of the name is now almost extinct, though the birth registration returns for 1890 show that it was then still to be found synonymous with Beatty, around Athlone. The variant Beytagh has been noted in a Dublin will of 1839. Betagh is one of the not very numerous class of Gaelic Irish surnames derived from an occupation: biadhtach is a word (formed from biadh, food) denoting a public victualler; originally used in a complimentary sense, giving the idea of hospitality aswell as function, but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Anglo-Norman power was at its zenith, the betaghs, or betagii as they were called in the official Latin of the time,, were persons of very inferior status whom Curtis described as comparable to the villeins in feudal England. This applies only to the half of the country under effective Anglo-Norman rule that is counties Dublin, Louth, Meath, Kildare, Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford, part of Connacht and all Munster except Clare. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw the reconquest by hibernicized Norman lords and Gaelic chiefs of the greater part of this territory and by 1500 the "English Pale" had shrunk to a small area in Counties Louth, Meath, Kildare and Dublin. The rest, including practically all Ulster, was still Gaelic and unconquered. Betagh had certainly become a name of consequence in Co. Meath by the sixteenth century, for between 1570 and 1598 Betagh of Walterstown, Betagh of Rathalron, Betagh of Dunamore and Betagh of Moynalty all appear as gentlemen of that county, while William Betagh was chief serjeant of the adjoining Co. Cavan and Thomas Betagh was one of the gentlemen entrusted with the task of taking a muster of the inhabitants of Co. Cavan in 1587. The name occurs there and in the neighbouring Co. Monaghan in the Inquisitions of the next generation. Thomas Betagh of Laurencetown and William Betagh of Baflicashe, on the Meath-Cavan border, were transplanted to Co. Roscommon. Six (Betagh or Bytagh) appear in the lists of outlawed Jacobites, 1689 to 1702. Five places called Betaghstown-three in Meath, one in Westmeath and one in Co. Kildare-are further evidence of their standing. This implies that the Betaghs were of Norman origin. Father Thomas Betagh, S.J. (1769-1811), was born at Kells, Co. Meath, was notable for his activity in the revival of Catholic education at the end of the penal period. Thomas Edward Beatty (1801-1872), P.R.C.S.I., whose mother was a Betagh, was of a Co. Cavan family. Admiral David Beatty, Earl Beatty (1871-1936), a famous naval commander in the First World War, came of a well known family in Co. Wexford. Betty is not uncommon as a variant of Beatty, especially in Co. Fermanagh, where MacCaffrey is recorded as having been used synonymously with those surnames as recently as 1890. The cognate surname Mac an Bhiadhtaigh, anglicized MacVitty, is of Scottish Gaelic origin.