"Modern Clans" Sorry I don't get it?

[Pyper]

My G-Grandmother used to ask the guys, when they got to reminiscing, "Well if Scotland was so great, why did we leave?"

I'm a member of the Clan Macpherson Association (one of the largest in the USA). It's really just a social organization. We get together at the games, talk about things, share some food, and go home.

[MacBean]

I'd be interested in hearing which "small town outside of Inverness". Some of us hail from the same locale.

Night before last I was watching a documentary on building the Titanic. Some hearty souls in Belfast were remaking the prow section as a memorial, and making it the old way. They bent the steel ribs. They cut the steel plates. And the hammered in the red hot steel rivets. They even had a hat man (supervisor with bowler hat) who docked their pay for every mistake, or slacking. I think four men died building the Titanic. Their pay was miserable.

Imagine someone heating the rivets at the forge, and then throwing them, red hot, at you. They were hammered in by two men while a third man dampened the blows from the other side. As they cooled they tightened. If the work was substandard, the ship would leak. In the case of the Titanic, it seems something wasn't right with the riveting.

There's a very cool interactive web site on Building the Titanic here. The show was on National Geographic Channel. I'd never seen anything that drove home what it might have been like to work in the shipyards.

There are good videos at the above site worth viewing. Here is one for example: http://channel.nationalgeographic.co...ideos/10322_00

[SouthernCelt]

Pyper,

For a lot of us Scottish-Americans it was not our choice to leave. Our ancestors were forcibly transported to the new world and we never went back.
I've been to Scotland, had a great time and I'm willing to go back, unfortunately making a living takes priority.

[Gael Ridire]

Probably the best thing our ancestors did was make the decision to leave the home fires and go to the New World, either forced or by choice. Their descendants are better off then if they had stayed put. Of course that's my opinion.

To the one who sent to all their grandfather's memoirs, way to go!

Being the only child, of an only child, of an only child, I yearn for relatives, for kin. The clan/games gathering is a big picnic, hopefully all will feel it as a family reunion. The role the clan society now serves as is to preserve the clan history, genealogy, and accomplices of the clan members. And I've seen a time or two where the clan society rallied around a member who was in a hurtin' way. A rare thing indeed, but I wouldn't depend on it.

To me the Clan system died in Scotland at the end of the Jacobite era, then came the Highland clearances. As for Ireland, it was two hundred years earlier with Henry VIII and his "surrender & re-grant" program that began in 1543 A.D. Part of the agreement was giving up the Gaelic way of dress, language, music, religion, etc. Then a hundred years later came Oliver Cromwell who made sure that no child could trace who his grandfather was in documents and thus stand up and rally the clan around his banner.

Ya, today's clans are a romantic re-invention. Even some of today's chiefs could care less. At first I was sucked into all the romantic opinions, but being interested in history I went searching for myself and learned a lot along the way about what is truth and err. But without those societies and those like them, I'm afraid that in later generations we will all be just one society without a remembrance of history, or at least some would have it this way. I do like what one Irish chief said about charging membership, "We [newly formed society] are not going to charge for what is one's birthright." And what a visiting Scot said to me on discovering in a park near his hotel, "Thank God for ye Yanks! (Scottish diaspora descendants) For when the traditions of Scotland are gone, they'll still be around here."

And the beauty of it all today, you can choose to be a part or not.

[O'Callaghan]

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To me the Clan system died in Scotland at the end of the Jacobite era, then came the Highland clearances. As for Ireland, it was two hundred years earlier with Henry VIII and his "surrender & re-grant" program that began in 1543 A.D. Part of the agreement was giving up the Gaelic way of dress, language, music, religion, etc. Then a hundred years later came Oliver Cromwell who made sure that no child could trace who his grandfather was in documents and thus stand up and rally the clan around his banner.

Ya, today's clans are a romantic re-invention. Even some of today's chiefs could care less. At first I was sucked into all the romantic opinions, but being interested in history I went searching for myself and learned a lot along the way about what is truth and err. But without those societies and those like them, I'm afraid that in later generations we will all be just one society without a remembrance of history, or at least some would have it this way. I do like what one Irish chief said about charging membership, "We [newly formed society] are not going to charge for what is one's birthright." And what a visiting Scot said to me on discovering in a park near his hotel, "Thank God for ye Yanks! (Scottish diaspora descendants) For when the traditions of Scotland are gone, they'll still be around here."

And the beauty of it all today, you can choose to be a part or not.

Thanks for mentioning Irish clans.

In the early 17th century, then chief Conoghor O'Callaghan tried to get all the clan's lands transferred to him by legal action, and mostly failed, but succeeded in getting the chief's lands transferred to his personal ownership, which under the English system of primogeniture (itself since abolished, even in England) was the same thing, but under the system of tanistry hadn't been the same thing atall.

He probably hoped that he could do what many (all?) Scottish chiefs had done, and turn his clansmen into mere tenants, but Ireland was under English law and Scotland was and is under (Roman-based) civil law. The clan system was based on the Brehon law, which no longer governed on either side of the Irish sea, making the traditional land rights of the clans no longer enforceable.

Then, when Cromwell came, the chief and his close family were forced off their land near Mallow, Co. Cork, but given land in Co. Clare, leaving the ordinary clansmen behind in Cork. So, they didn't become landless due to Cromwell (although others may not have been so lucky), but were merely split up and moved around, bad enough as that may be.

However, later on (18th century?) there was a ban on all Catholics from owning land unless they converted to Church of Ireland, only repealed in 1840, by when the damage would already have been done. The potato famine came right after that, and rather than being in any position to buy land, tenant farmers were largely forced to emigrate. My own forebears were sailors by that time, still in Cork, but a couple of them wound up in England by way of the Royal Navy.

There was a clan society based in Mallow, in the area where the clan lands had been, but AFAIK it is defunct, and I've no inclination to start a new one here in the US, only because it sounds too much like hard work, and not because of any dastardly dealings by Chief Conoghor O'Callaghan in the 17th century.

The line of chiefs in Clare died out, and succession passed to a line that had fled to Spain, now blessed with the title of Don as well as Chief. If there were a clan society I doubt if they would participate, and I am not sure whether they are in a line descended from the dastardly Conoghor or not. I'd be willing to bet that I'm not, though!

[Meggers]

I don't think I have a clan to research back to at all. My last name is a Scottish occupational last name and not tied to a particular clan, really. All my last name really tells me was the occupation of an ancestor forever ago.

[EagleJCS]

If the modern clans were like the old system in the days of antiquity, I'd have been "puttin' the touch" on Buccleuch (as Chief of Clan Scott) for a bit of assistance long before now. As it stands these days, though, I'm on my own.

Some clan society members with close personal relationships - either through actual kinship or just good friendship - might help each other out when possible, but the reality is that the modern clan societies are more social/heritage/genealogy groups than actual 'family'.

[Singlemalt]

Gentlemen, thank you for your thoughtful and considered replys. This forum never fails to impress me with the well informed and insightful responses to questions.

Actually like my new friend from Clan Kieth I am also a "student of history" in the sense that I have a history degree from one of Canada' top university. I did not pursue a career in it as I slipped into sales where I found the money better but I have always read history with interest and passion. I certainly understand that the historic Clan system was long dead well before by grandfather was born. In fact it was in big trouble well before the Jacobite risings, which crushed it. I only used my Scottish born Grandfather as a more personal example of how the system failed the Scottish people, particularly those with little choice but to emigrate, which I think would include most of the ancestors of us living in the world outside Scotland.

Perhaps I am too literal, or cynical as the MacInnes gentleman suggests. However my early studies in history and my family background repelled against what, I thought I was seeing, on this forum as some sort of promotion of a long continuous system of clan, loyalty, affiliation and leadership.

Your responses indicate that you all recognize that in reality most of the "modern clans" are a reinvention mostly from us here in the New World. As long as we all recognize what they are and what we are doing I have no problem with the concept. We all need a flag to rally around and friendship and comradeship are nothing to be trifle about. If the modern sense of clan membership brings a little joy into your life I would not in any way want to diminish it. More power to you and your friends. I am afraid I am personally just a little to literal to buy into it. Perhaps that is my problem.

What I am seeing from your responses is an intelligent recognition that you are re-inventing new social groups which have considerable value to the current membership. As such I have no problem with what you are promoting. I think I will just chose not to participate.

To the member who asked exactly where my Grandfather's family was from. It was Clachnaharry which is now part of the city of Inverness but was then a small fishing village west of the city on the Beauly Firth. I have never been there but would like to see it someday.

And finally to the member who suggested "memoirs" be treated with great care and respect I heartily agree. My grandfather's start on his life story came down to me handwritten with a fountain pen on lined foolscap. I have since transported it into a Word document and scanned the original it into Adobe and sent it to my many, brothers, cousins, nephews and nieces so that the profound story it tells will never be lost on his descendents

[English Bloke]

... My grandfather's [memoirs] start on his life story came down to me handwritten with a fountain pen on lined foolscap. I have since transported it into a Word document and scanned the original it into Adobe ...

My goodness! I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that. I'll bet it's a tremendous read. Not wishing to intrude on such a personal thing but have you ever thought of getting it published? That would be a fine and fitting tribute to a man you clearly care deeply about and a great historical insight for those who have an interest in the Scottish diaspora.

[Jack Daw]

The Clan MacIntyre Association is merely a club of people with similar interests (history, genealogy) in our common clan. It does not represent the clan in any manner. As a matter of fact, the clan chief is not involved in our American association although he lives in the U.S.