From Ó Muircheartaigh, ‘navigator’ — a County Kerry name, the same family and root that gives the more common modern form Moriarty.
The Murtagh certificate.
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Gaelic Origin · Root meaning ‘navigator’
Murtagh anglicises Ó Muircheartaigh, built on muircheartach, ‘navigator’. The family were first found in County Kerry, part of the old territory of Desmond, where the Ó Muircheartaigh were chiefs in the barony of Dunkerron — the same family whose name is far more commonly seen today in its other anglicised form, Moriarty.
A name most people now meet through fiction rather than family history — Arthur Conan Doyle borrowed it for Sherlock Holmes's great rival, Professor Moriarty.
Irish form: Ó Muircheartaigh
