This extraordinary surname recorded as Casman, Casmon, and possibly Cashen, is Irish, and specifically from Counties Waterford and Cork. Its derivation is from the pre 10th century Gaelic O'Ciosain, a Kerry surname more normally recorded as Kissane or Cussane. Although the precise translation is uncertain, the first nameholder, the chief of the tribe, was probably the head tax collector for the area, the basic word "cios" means a tax or tribute, either that or the tribe lived by their own rules and "extracted" tributes from all who ventured onto their lands! The spelling as Cashman is an anglicisation from the 16th century, and it does suggest that the nameholders were aware of the original meaning of their name.Unfortunately the majority of the early Irish registers were destroyed by the IRA in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. Surviving recordings include examples such as John Shey Cashman, who married Nora McKinley at Cork on June 26th 1843, and Mary Cashman, a girl of fifteen, who left Cork on May 21st 1846, on the ship "Liberty", bound for New York. This was in the first year of the infamous Potato Famine, 1846 - 1851. The first surviving recording in Ireland may be that of William Cashman, a witness at St Nicholas church, Waterford, on June 20th 1814.

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