Clans


       Due to their lack of political organization, throughout their long history the
      Celts failed to achieve any lasting territorial control.  They compensated for
      this by developing tightly knit, extended family units that gave them
      cohesion at grass roots level and formed the basis of the clan system.
      


      The Celts operated on a tribal basis, holding their land in common and
      owing their principal allegiance to a chief.  Their basic territorial measure-
      ment was the tuath, or tribe, which was large enough to provide a fighting
      force of anything between 500 and 3,000 men.
      


      The word "clann" in Gaelic means children of the family.  Each clan was a
      large group of related people, theoretically an extended family, supposedly
      descended from one progenitor and all owing allegiance to the chief as their
      head and their protector.  The clan also included those who married into
      the clan as well as other unrelated individuals who joined the clan for
      protection and support.

      Historically clans were located predominantly in the Highlands and islands
      since that is where most of the Gaelic speaking peoples lived.  In the
      Lowlands and Border region (the area along the border with England)
      similar groups were known as families.  Nowadays many of these families
      have adopted the term "clan."

Septs


    "Sept" is a term borrowed from Irish culture in the nineteenth century to
      explain the use of a variety of surnames by members of a single clan.  In
      Ireland "sept" is roughly synonymous with the Scottish "clan" and refers
      to an intra-related or dependent family.  Where Scots would refer to
      "MacGregor and his clan" an Irish historian might say "O'Neill and his septs."
      The Irish historically had princes and thought in terms of place rather than
      surname.  Thus, the surname "O'Brian" might be a sept of several different
      princes.  In Scotland, only in the case of larger clans with distinct and
      sometimes widely separated sub-families is the term "sept" appropriate.
      


      The variety of surnames within a Scottish Clan do not represent separate and
      definable sub-clans but instead reflect the vagaries of transition of the Gaels
      into the English naming system as well as marriages, migrations and
      occupations.  The main family itself may have developed a variety of
      surnames.

    
   			 


			 Continued . . .
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