Keating is an Anglo-Norman surname that has been Irish for more than eight centuries. In Irish it is Céitinn. The family was among the earliest of the twelfth-century invaders, settled in County Wexford and spread west into Tipperary, and its best-known son, Geoffrey Keating, wrote a history of Ireland in Irish that was copied by hand for generations. Blankets, mugs and more bearing the Keating crest are together in our Keating Irish family gifts collection.
Quick answer: Keating comes from the Norman “de Ketyng,” meaning “of Ketyng,” a place-name. The Keatings were among the earliest Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland, received large grants of land in Wexford, and later spread into Carlow, Kildare, Tipperary, Waterford and Cork. The Irish form is Céitinn, and the historian Seathrún Céitinn (Geoffrey Keating, c.1580–1644) of Moorestown in south Tipperary made the name famous.
What Does the Keating Surname Mean?
Rev. Patrick Woulfe, in Irish Names and Surnames, gives the Irish form as Céitinn and the English forms as Keating and Keatinge. He traces the name to the Norman “de Ketyng,” that is, “of Ketyng,” a place-name he thought was probably in England, adding frankly that he could not find the spot. Keating is therefore a locational surname: it first described where a man came from, not who his father was, which sets it apart from the Ó and Mac names of Gaelic Ireland.
Once in Ireland the family’s name was taken into the Irish language as Céitinn, the form Geoffrey Keating used on the title of his own history. English-speaking clerks settled on Keating, while Keatinge survived as a less common spelling in some branches.
Where Did the Keating Family Settle in Ireland?
Woulfe describes the Keatings as “among the earliest of the Anglo-Norman invaders.” They settled first in County Wexford, where the invasion began in 1169 and where they obtained large grants of land. From Wexford the family spread into Carlow and Kildare in Leinster and into Tipperary, Waterford and Cork in Munster.
The Tipperary branch is the best documented. The Dictionary of Irish Biography records James fitz Edmund Keating of Moorestown, County Tipperary, as the holder of extensive lands in the barony of Iffa and Offa. The Gaelic learned family of Mac Craith ran a school of poetry at Burgess, not far from Moorestown, and a Moorestown son trained there in Irish, Latin, history and law shows how far this Norman family had entered the intellectual life of Gaelic Munster by the late sixteenth century.
Who Was Geoffrey Keating?
Geoffrey Keating, in Irish Seathrún Céitinn, was born about 1580 in south Tipperary, most likely the third of seven sons of James fitz Edmund Keating of Moorestown. After his early schooling with the Mac Craiths at Burgess he went to the Continent to study for the priesthood, took a doctorate in divinity, probably from the University of Reims, and was associated with the Irish college at Bordeaux after its foundation in 1603. He returned permanently to Ireland about 1610 and served as a priest in the diocese of Lismore, where he became a well-known preacher across east Munster.
His religious writing includes Eochair-sgiath an Aifrinn (“Key to the Defense of the Mass”), written while he was on the Continent, and Trí bior-ghaoithe an bháis (“The Three Shafts of Death”), usually dated to 1631. A Latin inscription carved in 1644 over the door of Cillín Chiaráin, the chapel of St Ciarán at Tubbrid, commemorates his part in its foundation. Tubbrid, in Irish Tiobraid, is a civil parish in the barony of Iffa and Offa West whose patron is St Ciarán. The DIB notes that Keating had died several years before Cromwell came to Ireland.
Why Does Foras Feasa ar Éirinn Matter?
Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, “Foundation of Knowledge on Ireland,” reached its final form about 1634. It told the story of Ireland from the creation of the world down to the coming of the Normans, and it was written partly to answer the hostile picture of the Irish drawn by Giraldus Cambrensis, Meredith Hanmer, Edmund Spenser and the Old English Palesman Richard Stanihurst. Written in stylish Irish prose, it became a manuscript best seller, copied again and again and circulated in English and Latin translations as well as in Irish.
It was first printed in 1723, in an English translation by Dermot O’Connor. That long life in manuscript and print is why the surname of a Wexford Norman family is tied so closely to Irish-language scholarship. The place-name record at logainm.ie still cites Foras Feasa ar Éirinn among its sources for Tubbrid, the parish where Keating’s memory is carved in stone.
Is Keating an Irish Name or a Norman One?
Both, in sequence. The name began as a Norman locational surname and arrived in Ireland with the invasion, so it is not Gaelic in origin. It has also been in Ireland since the first generation of Anglo-Norman settlement, it took an Irish form, Céitinn, and its most famous bearer wrote in Irish in defense of the Gaelic past. Woulfe’s entry closes by saying that Dr. Geoffrey Keating “has made the name famous in Irish literary history.”
Keatinge is the one variant Woulfe records beside Keating. Similar-sounding names should be treated as separate until a family’s own documents show a change of spelling.
Where Are Keating Families Found?
The historic range of the name runs across the south and east of Ireland: Wexford first, then Carlow, Kildare, Tipperary, Waterford and Cork. Within Tipperary, the Moorestown, Burgess and Tubbrid connections place the family’s most famous branch in the south of the county, in the baronies of Iffa and Offa. Families who know only that their Keating ancestors were “from Tipperary” or “from Wexford” can use the records below to narrow that down to a parish and townland.
How Can I Research Keating Family History?
- IrishGenealogy.ie: civil birth, marriage and death records, plus church registers for several dioceses.
- National Archives of Ireland 1901 and 1911 census: search Keating by county and compare households in Wexford, Tipperary, Kildare and Waterford.
- Griffith’s Valuation: mid-nineteenth-century landholders, useful for fixing a Keating family to a townland.
- National Library of Ireland Catholic parish registers: baptisms and marriages, many earlier than civil registration.
- logainm.ie: the Irish and English forms of townlands and parishes such as Tubbrid.
Look for Keatinge as well as Keating in older indexes, and note the townland on every record: where two Keating families share the same given names, the townland is often what tells them apart.
Notable Irish Bearers of the Keating Name
- Geoffrey Keating (Seathrún Céitinn) (c.1580–1644), priest and historian from south Tipperary, author of Foras Feasa ar Éirinn, Trí bior-ghaoithe an bháis and Eochair-sgiath an Aifrinn.
- Seán Keating (1889–1977), born in County Limerick, the painter of Men of the South and Night’s Candles Are Burnt Out, who recorded the Ardnacrusha hydroelectric scheme in 1926–1927 and was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1948 to 1962.
- Justin Keating (1930–2009), born in Dublin, son of Seán Keating, a lecturer in veterinary anatomy and presenter of RTÉ’s Telefís Feirme, who served as Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1973 to 1977.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Keating Name
What is Keating in Irish?
Céitinn. Geoffrey Keating is known in Irish as Seathrún Céitinn.
Is Keating a Norman name?
Yes. It comes from the Norman “de Ketyng,” “of Ketyng,” and the family came to Ireland with the Anglo-Norman invasion of the twelfth century.
Which county are the Keatings from?
Wexford is where the family first settled and received land. It then spread into Carlow, Kildare, Tipperary, Waterford and Cork, and the Keatings of Moorestown in south Tipperary are the best-known branch.
Who is the most famous Keating in Irish history?
Geoffrey Keating, the seventeenth-century priest and historian whose Foras Feasa ar Éirinn was first printed in English in 1723.
Is Keatinge the same name as Keating?
Yes. Woulfe lists Keatinge as an English form of Céitinn alongside Keating.
From the Wexford grants to the stone at Tubbrid, the Céitinn story travels well: set on the Irish National Tartan, the Keating crest appears on everything from the woven blanket to the House of Keating garden flag in our Keating Irish family gifts.