On the one hand, he was to receive protection and manpower from his ‘kindred and friends’ (which is the literal translation of fine). This extended hierarchical kin group was a mixed blessing for a Gaelic lord. In the caseof the McCarthy Reagh lordship in Florence’s lifetime, succession was decided by negotiation within the ruling kindred, with a hierarchy of seniority being decided in advance of the death of a chieftain, without any reference to the inhabitants of their territory of Carberry.Ī Gaelic aristocrat could therefore aspire to authority over a very wide kin group as well as over his dependants and tenants. One MacCarthy chieftain, Florence MacCarthy would in the late 16 th century, tell the English that it was a title that, ‘the O’Sullivans and the rest of the gentlemen, freeholders and followers of the country laid on me’ However there were times where there was no election process at all. In theory the head of Gaelic clan was elected by the ‘true kin’ from a wide pool of relatives.
Each sept (branch) of this clan had a chieftain, with authority over his kindred and their territory.Īccording to George Carew, the Lord President of Munster in the late 1590s, election and the approval of an overlord (‘giving of the rod’) were equally important in the succession of a chieftain, ‘the rod avails nothing except he be chosen by the followers, not yet the election without the rod’ In the case of the MacCarthys, lords of what is now west Cork and south Kerry, this was Carthy, hence their name, ‘the son of Carthy’, or collectively, Clan Carthy – ‘the race of Carthy’. The Gaelic Irish practised ‘agnatic patrilineal descent’, in other words the membership of family included all those descended from a given ancestor on their male side. In theory, the holder of this office was elected by his kinsmen, but in practice, he was often selected by negotiation, brute force or outside interference.
CLAN LORD UNTRAINUS FREE
Technically, the chief or lord was elected by the free men of the clan, but in practice, by 1500, the candidate with the most muscle (that is who had the widest backing and the greater amount of soldiers) tended to prevail. The fine were bound to each other by the practice of fostering their children to each other, thus making concrete what was a very distant blood relation. A chief ( ceann cine) was selected to protect the integrity of this territory and that of his kinsmen ( fine). The territory of the clan was their duiche – native place. In this article though, I will refer to them as clans.Ī Gaelic clan was a territorial group with a common name, who believed they were descended from a common ancestor – thus the O’Neills were supposed to descend from Niall, the O’Donnells from Domhnal and so on. But its origins are in Ireland, the cradle of Gaelic culture.Ĭlan ( clann) is a Gaelic word, meaning ‘family’, though the Irish kin-based organisations were usually called ‘septs’ in English, from the Irish sliocht, or line. The word clan seems to have entered English via Scots Gaelic, where it was used to describe the social organisation in the Highlands, where it lasted until the late 18 th century. A representation of Gaelic Irish family By John Dorney
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