Are the Irish litigious by nature or did they pick it up from the English during the centuries of occupation? The English were ever meticulous in abiding by the law in all things - lawful or unlawful. Members of the Piggot family from Dysart kept an extensively annotated book containing "Extracts of Common Law" (ca.1745). In that highly litigious age an understanding of law could not be left to the avaricious vipers and pettifoggers (D.M. Beaumont in Local Office Holding and the Gentry of the Queen's County (Laois History & Society 1999). This family were a branch of the Piggott family of Chetwynd Edgmont in Salop, and one of the three Piggott residences show on Taylor & Skinners 1778 Maps of the Roads of Ireland was named Chetwynd, being on the Cork-Kinsale road. The others were at Capard and Camira, Co Laois.
A Fiant of 1563 notes the granting to "John Pygott of Dissert", gent, the lands of Dyssert alias Diserte. In 1569 William Pygott share "a messuage outside Crokers barre" in Dublin; John Pigott was granted land at Agholallor, Laois, and in 1588 Francis Piggott was among the pardoned of Dundrum, Co Down.
Edward MacLysaght's The Surnames of Ireland says that his surname is "well-known in Ireland since the 16th century and has been located in many parts of the country, and has been conspicuous on both sides in the centuries-long struggle between Ireland and England". In A Census of Ireland (1659) Piggott named Tituladoes and Commissioners in Cos Cork, Limerick and Kilkenny and was among the principal Irish names in the Co Laois barony of Maryborough. The family was well represented in Owners of Land of One Acre and Upwards (1876) having holdings in Cos Galway, Limerick, Cork, Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare, Offaly and Laois. The largest holding, the 4,732 acres of Robert A.R. Pigot, Capard, Rosenallis, Co Laois, who also had a further 3,477 acres in Co Limerick. MacLysaght says that the earliest Pigot he had located was Nicholas Pigote who had been appointed governor of Dublin Castle in 1546, but an earlier official was Ranulph Pigot who was appointed constable of Roscommon Castle in 1337. Seβn de Bhulbh's Sloinnte na h╔ireann/Irish Surnames gives Piggott as deriving from the French pic (woodpecker) plus diminutive ~et. Of the surname Pickett he offers no explanation, merely noting it as an English surname. Noe does he follow The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames in giving Piggott as an alternative form of Pickett (a diminutive, with Old French suffix ~et of the mysterious pair Pick/Pike); O-F picot = "point, pointed object", but can hardly figure here.
So is Picket(t) in Ireland a separate surname, derived from picot, a pointed object? One of the methods used in an effort to extract information during the 1798 rebellion was half-hanging: the other was the picket, which was a pointed stick set in the ground with the point upwards. A prisoner was hoisted by a rope tied to his right leg and right arm while his left heel rested on the picket, thus forcing him to attempt to pull himself upwards to save the heel from being pierced by the picket.
The Register of the Hospital of St John the Baptist, Dublin, notes a William Picot (also rendered Picood) among a list of witnesses in 1200, and again in 1248 and 1260 together with multis aliis. The Irish Exchequer Payments notes that William Picot (Pycot) was rememberancer of the exchequer from 1272 until 1281. Among the pardoned noted in The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns (1522-1603) was Eleyse Pickot of Glanore in 1573; John Picket of Dirrevillane (Derryvillane, Co Cork) in 1577 and Robert Pickott, shoemaker (?Co Waterford) in 1602. In 1578 a house in Dublin was granted to Richard ffryan "in the High street wherein one William Picot latlie dwelled and another ... for years continuing granted to Thomas Walshe, Clerke, upon a shoppe in high street called the Barbors shoppe, and a house over against the great gate in Christe Church lane ...".
Of the 14 listed Picketts in current telephone directories 13 are in Dublin. Pigott is listed 79 times, largely in Dublin and the 06 area, while Piggot has 28 entries, strong in the same areas. North of the Border there were 16 Piggotts, and 5 Picketts. Most noted bearers of this surname were John Edward Pigot (1822-71), Young Irelander and poet, born in Kilworth, Co Cork and Richard Pigott (1828-89), journalist and forger. The Irish word d∅seart means "a desert; a secluded retreat" common in place-names, anglicized Desert, Disert, Dysart, and Dysert.