Hession

Hession (pronounced "hesh + in") is an old Connacht Irish surname. It is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó'hOisin. In Gaelic, it is pronounced "O + hush + een".

It appears to originate in Co. Galway and in County Mayo. The Hession surname is predominantly found in these counties in the Census of Ireland, 1911. It means to descendant of Oisín a personal name meaning "little deer", and the name of the poet and warrior of the fianna in Irish mythology. Hugh Hession (Áed Ua hOissín) was the name of two Tuam clerics in the 11th and 12th Centuries - the coarb of St. Jarlath (1050) and the first Archbishop of Tuam (1152) respectively. George Petrie who unearthed the High cross at Tuam which bears an inscription Áed Ua hOissín wrote that he was assisted by a gentleman of the name O'Heshin who little realised he was digging up the relic of an ancestor. Darby O'Hession (spelt O'Hoysshynne) is the name of a Galway Cleric in the 16th, a vicar choral recorded in that churches first charter of St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church in Galway in 1551.