Clare Past Forum

The word “clachan” is used to denote a group of farmhouses in 18th and 19th century Ireland, but the word originated in Scotland and in Ulster (a province in Ireland), and I often wonder to what extent, if any, it was used in the rest of Ireland, and, in particular, in County Clare.
I first came across “clachan” in something written by Kevin Whelan - I forget what - maybe Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape (1997). The word is defined here: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/C ... 4c542c8c38. I have not found the word “clachan” in anything written before that, but that may be down to the fact I have not read very much that was written in the Irish language.

I think “clachán” is a good word. Visitors to Ireland in the early 19th century used the word “hamlet”, but, for me, “hamlet” conjures up a pretty English village. “Clachán” has proved to be a very useful word, and is used widely; it appears a few times in Thomas Keneally’s Fanatic Heart (2022), for instance, and it was used by Terry Dunne, historian at Clare Library, in his talk*, “Clare’s Changing Landscape Mapped: 1840s - 1920s”, in which he gives a really good example of the total disappearance of a group of houses sometime after the making of the 1840 Ordnance map. The word is also used by Dr Susan Arthure in her very interesting talk* “A Clare Community in Australia: Exporting the Clachan”.
* Clare Library History Week 2024 available on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... sejPCvcOBI

A very similar word, “clochán”, is used in the article, “ A survey of the Clann Ghormáin (McGormans) of Ibrickan, county Clare: land, lineage and resettlement in late medieval Ireland”, by Luke McInerney and Robert O’Halloran, recently donated to Clare Libraries: https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/cocla ... ormain.htm. But “clochán” is used to describe a fortified settlement (see page 49):
“The poem pays particular attention to one landholding unit of the Clann Ghormáin in Kilmacduane parish—the townland of Cloghaun (Clochán). This would suggest that Cloghaun was regarded as one of their principal estates. The poem speaks of Clochán as a fortified settlement where hospitality was generously dispensed. The poet provides detail on the type of dwelling-place at Clochán calling it a brog (brugh), which implies a mansion or high-status residence. A connection between the Clann Ghormáin and Cloghaun is suggested in other sources.” end of quote.

I wondered, then, if the word “clachán”, for a group of houses, had originally denoted a fortification; after all, a group of houses is a kind of fortification. But then I looked at the place-name information on logainm.ie, and found the word “clochán” translated as “causeway, stepping stones, old stone structure”. Even in Co. Donegal, where I thought it might be translated as a group of houses, the townland of Cloghan is translated as stepping stones.: “I have crossed a splendid Cloghan (or row of stepping stones) in the river Finn from which I gained a correct definition of the word.. J.O D. litir Dh na nG. 200”: https://www.logainm.ie/en/1165780.

So I decided that “clochán” and “clachán” must be two quite different words with different meanings, but in Dinneen’s dictionary, I found that “clachán” and “clochán” mean the same, i.e. “a ruin, remains of an old fort; a heap of stones; a stone circle; a burying ground; a village or townland containing the parish church; a causeway; a pavement.” I just wish Dinneen gave an instance of the use of the word.

Sheila

The Glens of Antrim Historical Society gives the nearest thing I can find to a history of the use of the word “Clachán”; see this piece entitled “Books and Articles on Clachans and Rundale”: https://antrimhistory.net/clachan-proje ... d-rundale/.
It seems that it was a Professor Estyn Evans who first used the word (in 1942). I wondered (above) where I first saw the word and I think now that it was in the article by Kevin Whelan, “Settlement Patterns in the West of Ireland”, published in Decoding the Landscape, edited by Timothy Collins (1994). My copy is the third edition (2003). Whelan sets out Evanses ideas regarding outposts of an ancient settlement pattern, and goes on to say, “Typical examples were the clustered rural settlements christened ‘clachans’ by Evans.” (page 61).
So I’ve decided that Evans invented the word, or took it from a word used in Scotland to denote quite another kind of settlement (which included a kirk). ‘Clachán” sounds authentic, but I don’t think Evans found it in the Irish language of Ireland. He probably decided that there was a necessity for some such word.

In this piece on the work of the Congested Districts Board in Co. Mayo, the word “sráidbhaile” is used to describe a group of houses: http://www.scoilraifteiri.com/rundale2.html

Sheila

Limerick city has/had a GAA club called Claughan. I don't the origin of the name in that context, territorial or otherwise.

Hi Matthew

Thank you for taking an interest in the word “clachan”.
Wikipedia has an entry on Claughaun GAA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claughaun_GAA. There’s a paragraph on the origin of the name: “ The Irish name ‘Clochán’ is said to mean ‘the place of the stepping stones’, which referred to a small stream that flowed where the modern day Dublin Road lies, at Clare Street.”

I’ve decided now that the word clachan is used solely in scholarly works to denote a group of houses in 19th century Ireland. The word used in Ireland was ‘sráidbhaile’, but that word is also used to denote a village with church, school, bar and some houses, so it proved necessary for scholars to find a word for a group of houses that had none of those amenities. Up to the 1970s, if not later, the word “village” was used for a group of houses in some parts of Ireland. When I was in Co. Mayo in the 1970s, I was puzzled to hear someone say “no one else in the village was able to have the Stations [a Mass in the house for all the neighbours]”, referring to a place that was well away from the place I would have called the village.
When I was a child in the 1950s, the back yard of our house was called "the street". Was this a usual name for back yard?

Sheila