Brugha (IPA Irish pronunciation: bˠɾˠuː) is a modern Irish surname, created c. 1899 by Irish revolutionary Cathal Brugha. It is a Gaelicization of Brugha's birth name, Burgess, which was itself Anglicized from either the Irish "An Bhuiríos" or the Norman French "Buirgheis."
Brugha's direct male ancestors were Huguenots from Picardy who went first to Cornwall and then Borris, County Carlow. It is unclear whether the village adopted its name from the people, the people from the village, or separately from unrelated eytmologies.
Today, Brugha is also used as a Gaelicization for Burrows, per Foras na Gaeilge, and is sometimes seen as de Brugha. Due to this, Warfield and Daly's contention that only Cathal Brugha's descendants use the name seems unlikely.
Sources
- Mathews, Joe. "The Ancestry of Cathal Brugha and the Burgess Family."
- Ó Dochartaigh, Tomás. Cathal Brugha: a shaol is a thréithe. 1969.
- Quinn, James. "Brugha, Cathal." Dictionary of Irish Biography. Dublin: National Archives of Ireland, 2009.
- Warfield, Derek and Raymond Daly. Celtic & Ireland in Song and Story. 2012.
- Woulfe, Rev. Patrick. Irish Names and Surnames. 1923.