I have looked up a lot of sites and didnt see this mentioned anywhere so I thought I would let you all know .....

My boyfriend is Timothy Hehir (28) Galway, Ireland. His father Pat Hehir from Clare.

The O'Hehir Surname belonged to their family up until the Potato Famine when while millions of Irish starved to death, the English set up poor houses and gave out food to the sick, poor etc and the condition was that if you had an "O'" in front of your surname when you went to beg for food, you had to forfeit the "O'" which strongly signified an Irish name and subsequently most of the "O'Hehir" families became "Hehir".