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Comhairle Chlanna na hÉireann
The Council of Irish Clans

Comhairle Chlanna na hÉireann The Council of Irish ClansComhairle Chlanna na hÉireann The Council of Irish ClansComhairle Chlanna na hÉireann The Council of Irish Clans

Connect with your Irish heritage

Connect with your Irish heritageConnect with your Irish heritageConnect with your Irish heritage

What is an Irish Clan?

Clan is Family

The English word clan derives from the Gaelic word clann ‘family’. A clan was originally the immediate family of a chieftain. The word was later adapted to include extended family over generations. Over time, this group included some who did not carry the same surname but changed it to the clan surname. The word finally adapted to mean ‘a family, extended family, a commonality based on blood or not, that shared a common territory, culture, and symbolism’. Meanwhile, the Gaelic word teallach replaced the original meaning of clan and means ‘family, household’.

Blood & Territory

Therefore, a clan was usually a blood-related group of people who shared a common kinship, culture, territory, and surname. Clans included the native Irish, Vikings, Normans, Old English, and Gallowglass. Some early Plantation families (usually with a clan heritage from Scotland) that adapted to Irish ways and lived in a common area before the fall of the Gaelic period can also be included, but these are very rare. These are often indicated by having a townland named after them and a generation-on-generation link to that area. However, some townlands named after foreign surnames were simply named after a planter/settler who was a Lord, Earl, or grantee of land and only occupied the townland with his immediate family; this clearly does not constitute a clan, and is evident by many such names in Meath, Westmeath, and Dublin.

Social Structure & Surnames

Further, a family is not a clan if a person of a particular foreign surname settled in, say, Limerick, another in Galway, and another in Drogheda and lived independently and had nothing in common with the others but the spelling of their surname; this represents nothing more than separate families. Clans are larger social structures than individual family units. It is Gaelic culture that defines a clan.


The clan formed the basis of a localised social structure, laws, and customs based around a common surname. Clans were also related to a wider kinship group known as tribes, or in Gaelic, tréibh; this broader tribal group was understood among clans, and each clan had its own surname and a tribal name.

1641

The Irish clan system ended after the 1641 Rebellion and the widespread destruction under Cromwell. 1641 was the last time that the Irish fought in clan groups in warfare. After 1641, such as at the Battle of Aughrim, clan individuals certainly fought but not as clan groupings. In contrast, in 1641 Irish clans fought under various clan leaders such as O'Neill, Maguire, O'Reilly and McCarthy.

Hence, one useful way to identify Irish clans is to review the Fiants of Ireland, for example, in relation to warfare, such as the Nine Years’ War (1593-1602), after which came pardons to very many individuals who often appear in clan groups, sometimes with a ‘Chief of the Name’, and an identifiable territory.


Hence, after 1641, the idea of the clan in Ireland was lost; clanspeople and their way of life was dispersed. That's not to say that an individual did not recite his ancestors but by and large they did not live collectively in their clan lands or used the Brehon Laws and swore to a chieftain.

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