McCabe - Irish Surname Origin & Meaning
Irish form: Mac Cába
Meaning: “son of the cape/hood wearer”
Traditional stronghold: Cavan, Monaghan
Came to Ireland as gallowglass mercenaries.
Pronunciation: muh-KAYB; Irish Mac Cába: mok KAW-buh
History of the McCabe name
The McCabes were a gallowglass family, professional heavy-armed mercenaries of mixed Norse-Hebridean descent who came to Ireland from the Scottish isles in the mid-fourteenth century. They took service with the O'Reillys and O'Rourkes of Breifne and settled permanently in what is now County Cavan, where they became so integrated that they were reckoned a native sept, and where the name is still most numerous, along with Monaghan and Louth. The name Mac Cába is thought to derive from cába, a cape or hood, presumably a nickname of the founding ancestor. McCabes spread with emigration through Britain, America and Australia.
Variants: MacCabe · Cabe
Famous bearers of the name
- Patrick McCabe - Clones-born novelist, author of The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto.
- Eugene McCabe - Monaghan playwright and novelist, author of Death and Nightingales.
- Thomas McCabe - Belfast United Irishman who famously helped block a plan to launch a Belfast slave-trading company.
Related names from the same part of Ireland: Connolly · Brady · O'Reilly · McGowan · Smith · Clarke · Duffy · McMahon