Clarke

Clarke looks English and mostly is not. Cléireach means the clerk and was a very common surname in early Anglo-Irish records, but most of our Irish Clarkes are O'Clerys or MacClerys.

Ó Cléirigh takes its name and descent from an ancestor named Cléireach who flourished about the middle of the 9th century, seventh in descent from Guaire the Hospitable, King of Connacht. They were at one time the ruling family of Aidhne, co-extensive with (covering the same ground as) the diocese of Kilmacduagh, but early in the 11th century they lost their power, and towards the close of the 13th they were finally driven out of Aidhne and dispersed.

One branch settled in Tirawley in Co. Mayo, another in Co. Cavan and a third in the neighbourhood of Kilkenny. From the Tirawley branch sprang the O'Clerys of Tirconnell, who succeeded the O'Scingins as poets and chroniclers to the O'Donnells and became celebrated in Irish literary history as the compilers of the Annals of the Four Masters. Besides the patrimony (the land a family held by inheritance) they inherited by marriage they obtained large grants of land from the O'Donnells, and their residence was at the castle of Kilbarron near Ballyshannon.

Other names land on Clarke too. Mac an Chléirigh is a common Cavan surname, now nearly always translated Clarke. Mac Giolla Arraith was an old Sligo family whose head was sometimes chief of the barony (an old land division, several parishes across) of Leyny, probably of the same stock as the O'Haras, and a branch of it settled with the O'Haras in Co. Antrim before the end of the 16th century. Ó Cléirchín, a diminutive of the same word for a cleric, belonged to the Ui Fidhgheinte, anciently lords of Ui Cairbre Aebhdha in the east of Co. Limerick, and to a Meath family who were lords of Coillte Fallamhain.