From Mac Aogáin — hereditary Brehon lawyers, serving Gaelic lords across Connacht and Munster for generations, judges rather than warriors.
Gaelic Origin · Root name Aogán (hereditary Brehon law family)
Egan descends from Aogán, and like the Ó Dálaigh poets and Mac an Bhaird bards, the Mac Aogáin were a hereditary professional family — but of Brehon lawyers, not versifiers, interpreting and administering the native Brehon law for Gaelic lords across Connacht and Munster for centuries.
A third kind of inherited trade alongside poetry and prophecy — proof that Gaelic Ireland took its law as seriously, and made it as much a family calling, as its verse.
Irish form: Mac Aogáin
