HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE-L Archives

Archiver > HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE > 2007-01 > 1167907096


From: "David Gough" <>
Subject: [HWE] Irish Huguenots
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 11:38:16 +0100


Family lore, always discarded by me, has always claimed that there were
Huguenot roots in one of my family surnames. This family was called Hewitt
from the villages of Magheralin and Moira in County Down, Northern Ireland.
During a recent visit to Northern Ireland I established that some of my
Hewitts were also from the village of Aghalee, County Antrim, a few miles
to the north of the above named villages. From then on I discovered what is
admittedly only circumstantial evidence but what I think rather confirms a
Hueguenot link. The evidence is as follows,

The use of unusual first names for early 19th century Ireland both for my
Hewitts and related families, Denis and Francis.

Related families in the Agahlee area, Beckett (the Irish playwright Samuel
Beckett was reputed to be of French Huguenot descent) and Falloon. Similar
family lore in this latter family claims that the Falloons were also of
Huguenot origin and that the spelling of the name was originally Walloon.

Earlier spellings of the Hewitt surname was Huit or Huet in the Aghalee
area.

A few miles away in Lisburn, County Antrim there exsisted a Huguenot
settlement and when the town of Lisburn was almost entirely burnt down in
1707 some of the Huguenots living there took up residence in Aghalee, in
fact there is a road in Aghalee called Huguenot Drive.

I should say that I can find no reference anywhere to Huguenot Hewitts,
Huits or Huets in County Antrim although I did find a Higuet family who seem
to be of Walloon extraction.

I realise of course that my evidence is still very circumstantial but would
welcome comments or opinions as to possible future research.
A tough task in Ireland as most of the early records were destroyed in the
1920s.

David Gough

This thread: