I was under the impression that the term 'taking the soup' originated from the famine, when the protestant population offered soup to the starving catholics provided they renounced their Catholic Religion and many Catholics anglacised their surnames at the same time. Can anyone elaborate on this as I have in my research on the Beggans, found the anglacised name LITTLE in the late 1700,s long before the famine. I know that Beggan comes from the gaelic Baighan and that LITTLE is derived from the english translation but when was it first used and why? Maureen