MacEachmharcaigh or MacEacmarcais, each, meaning a steed or horse, and marcach, meaning a rider. MacCafferty means son of the horse rider. It is a surname of Co. Donegal and Co. Derry.

The name is also found in Co. Mayo, but often under the anglicized form of MacCaffry. The local pronunciation is sometimes O Ceararcais. The family is probably a branch of the O'Dohertys, among whom Eacmarcac was a personal name.

Donegal, beautiful and rugged with mighty cliffs hugging the sea and lofty mountain ranges! A place where weavers worked the looms creating intricate patterns in wool. The Gaelic speakers, the Ultachs, lived in Donegal. It was 1795, and the Battle of the Diamond near Portadown in Co Armagh was over. Protestant gangs roamed the countryside persecuting Catholics. The Peep o' Day-Boys were a wild breed. In later years they were to form themselves into the Orange Order. They boasted of the indulgence they got from their magistrate for wrecking or beating papists, as they called their Catholic neighbors. As more people left, snug little bits of land were theirs for the taking. The rightful owners fled to save their lives. It was the second time the Irish were sent "to Hell or Connaught".

Leitrim became their escape route, the gateway to the west for these Ultachs as they were called. Some of them settled on it's mountain slopes, while others pushed into Sligo, Mayo, Roscommon and Galway.

By 1833 the register of tithe payers in the Oughteragh District in Leitrim showed an unusually high percentage of Ulster names, especially in the area called Aughnasheelin. One of these names was Cafferty.

Down to this century some of these families relate the coming of their ancestors. The Caffertys first settled in Ballinaglera which they found to be bleak and cold and moved on to the southern slopes of Sliabh an Iarainn in Stralongford at a place called "Curley's Rock."

These new settlers found good land scarce, and had to reclaim land which was on the mountainsides, unused for centuries. They cleared it, then dug a mixture of lime and sand or gravel into the ground and allowed it to interact with the moory soil to form a compost which was good to grow potatoes and oats. They burned the lime from limestone taken from the river beds. The stones taken from the land were used by them to build their houses.

John Cafferty, patriarch of our clan, led his family and sheep out of Donegal, his homeland, and into Co Leitrim sometime before 1800. He and his large family raised a stone barn in the townland of Stralongford. Soon his sons married, and moved on to farm in nearby areas. Among them was his son Andrew and his wife Jane Moore Cafferty. They settled in Miskaun Glebe, on land leased from the Church of Ireland. It was here their children were born. My great, great grandfather, Charles Cafferty was born there between 1820-1830. He also became a farmer in the Townland of Miskaun Glebe, and married a girl from Ballinamore, Mary Creamer. Their daughter Mary Theresa was my great grandmother.