Talk:Irish clans

Official Clan

"for recognition as an official Irish clan" What does this mean? A 'clan' or 'clan membership' do not exist in Irish law - how could they? Ireland is a modern liberal democracy where all citizens are equal. The Irish govt. has given charitable status to this registry simply because it fulfils the requirements that all charities must pass. The status does not confer any special privileges as the sole arbiter of the 'clans', whatever they are. If I set up a rival list of families according to some other criteria, called it "Derbfine of the Emerald Isle" and registered as a charity, my list would be equally official. Cavort (talk) 11:41, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. There are some other things that need to be fixed, i think. There is another article, Clans of Ireland, which seems to try and combine a brief history of Irish clans with this organisation. It seems misleading. I think content regarding the organisation/charity "Clans of Ireland" should only be on the Clans of Ireland article, then a general article on Irish families/clans should be here at Irish clans.--Celtus (talk) 07:00, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I think this article should be re-directed to Clans of Ireland. Everything in this article is just about that organisation.--Celtus (talk) 06:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite

Now that I actually read into it... this article is more about the organisation than clans. I agree with the comment associated with the most recent edit to the article in that this dearly needs a rewrite which accommodates & provides a reference to major clans of Ireland -- the clans, specifically; and perhaps a link to a list of all the clans to encompass the relatively minor ones. Perhaps one section could address the Clans of Ireland website (assuming it is an officially-sanctioned agency and not just some commercial website), and another section could address genealogical research prevalent throughout the world. ...Now we just need someone to be bold and put the effort in to fix this up. --Bossi (talk • gallery • contrib) 23:58, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have attempted the rewrite suggested above for both this page and the Clans of Ireland page. James. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamesnorman (talk • contribs) 17:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Name Correction in the first paragraph

There was a very noticeable error in the first paragraph - There was claim that the O'Donnell family were known as Clann Dalaigh [sic]. Am I misreading this or shouldn't that be O'Daly? Descendants of Dálach would be Ó Dálaigh/Uí Dálaigh and the O'Donnells would be Ó Domhnaill. Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, can someone shed some light on this for me?

The Irish word clann is a borrowing from the Latin planta, meaning a plant, an offshoot, offspring, a single child or children, by extension race or descendants. For instance the O'Donnell family were poetically known as Clann Dalaigh, from a remote ancestor called Dalach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.161.6 (talk) 13:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

References

Bogus clans

Shouldn't there some mention of this?: One area which caused the writer particular concern was that of spurious 'Clans' and bogus 'Chiefs'. In the first place, as Edward MacLysaght and other authorities were at pains to point out, Ireland never had a clan system like that of Scotland, and MacLysaght advised that the term 'sept' is more appropriate in the Irish context. (1) In the second place, the thorough destruction by the English of Gaelic political structures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, allied with the loss of so many Irish records over the centuries, mean that only a handful of families can truly trace their lineages back to a duly inaugurated Chief. Nevertheless, Government and tourism interests required that Irish 'Clan' organisations should be brought into being, and that new 'Chiefs' should be found. Thus although it regularly pleaded lack of resources adequate to perform basic genealogical tasks, in 1989 the State's Genealogical Office/Office of the Chief Herald of Ireland found space in its new premises in Kildare Street, Dublin, for the organisation known as the 'Clans of Ireland'. It would be fair to say that most Irish genealogists acquiesced in the face of this tourism-driven 'clansterism', or indeed actively supported it. (2) For his pains in opposing the march of pseudo-genealogy and pseudo-heraldry and attempting to assert some kind of standards, the writer found himself isolated from most of his professional colleagues and effectively barred from contract work in the Genealogical Office from 1993. http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/irhismys/maccarthy.htm An Muimhneach Machnamhach (talk) 19:19, 18 August 2010 (UTC)