Irish families as septs of Highland Clans

[EagleJCS]

I can't give any insight to the OP's question, though I do have a comment.

Scott is also a family name that is of fairly ambiguous origin. I have been told there are at least three different origins (English, Irish, and of course, Scottish), none of which are related to one another. By some published accounts, the Scottish line traces back to one Uchtred filius scoti - Uchtred, son of (the?/a?) Scot - in the early 1100's, witness to the foundation charter of the abbey of Holyrood , among other things.

The Irish and English Scotts presumably derived their family names from ancestors who migrated from Scotland and either referred to themselves as 'Scots' or were referred to by their neighbors as 'the Scot'. (e.g. 'Alex, the Scot' turning into 'Alex Scott' over time). The second 't' was added later as spelling standardization took place, to differentiate the family from the nationality/ethnicity.

Regrettably, my family doesn't know for certain which of the three groups we descend from. A cousin has traced back to pre-Revolutionary western Virginia, but the trail gets a bit confused trying to go back from there. From what I recall, when asked my grandfather always said we were Irish Scotts, then laughed. I think he was making a joke based on the fact that his mother was Irish (from Country Antrim) and the family name is Scott, though there is a distinct possibility that we are, in fact, of Ulster Scots descent. As to where those Scotts may have came from, who knows?

[O'Callaghan]

If it comes to that, I have Hart in my family tree, and the English, Irish and Scottish Harts are all unrelated. The Scottish Harts have their own tartan, but are not considered to be a clan, or even a sept of one, AFAIK. By default, my Hart family is probably of English origin, but all the world tends to move to London, so that is by no means certain.

There are other names in my family tree that might be septs of Scottish clans, if they were only of Scots origin, but they probably aren't. I am sure there are, for example, Americans, who proudly wear a particular tartan because they have people in their family tree who bore a certain name that appears on a sept list, blissfully unaware that their ancestors were unrelated English people with the same name.

OTOH, the Callaghan was one of the small number of Irish clan chiefs that were actually recognised by the Irish government, that is, until they stopped doing that. The Irish constitution specifically prohibits recognising titles of nobility, so it was probably unconstitutional anyway!

[tripleblessed]

I'm not aware of a Scottish Hughes, but that doesn't mean that they didn't exist.

I have a Duncan Hughes, christened at Kirkton of Kingoldrum in 1750. Family was apparently well established there,
though hard to find a lot before then. I've been told repeatedly that at that time and location, he would have been clan Ogilvie. Clan Ogilvie folk seem to concur unanimously.

I have a line of MacCabes that arrived in Ireland as galloglaich for the O'Reilly and O'Rourke kings, provided by the their
chief, a MacLeod. They stayed so long their clan seat was in County Cavan, and they came to be regarded as native Irish.

There is a section of Galway and Mayo called Joyce Country because the younger son of a Norman knight who held a
castle in Wales was by Norman custom not inheriting anything, it being destined for the oldest son. His father made a match for him with a daughter of the Prince of Thomond, and his arrival in Limerick was noteworthy due to the size of his fleet. Upon realizing his bride would not be inheriting much either, he proceeded to establish himself as lord of much of Galway and Mayo. 700 years later, Joyces are regarded as native Irish.

The Fitz patronymic arrived in Ireland with the attempt by Henry II to pacify the Irish for the Pope, to gain a grant of
favor from said notary. Upset by the education of European Catholics by well-read Irish priests newly reaching out and establishing abbeys on the continent, the Pope was worried that education would erode the power of the Church. He asked Henry to go over and make the Irish behave, as they weren't obeying his cease and desist orders. Henry found it
convenient, as his youngest son (Evil Prince John of Robin Hood and the Magna Carta) had no holdings, leading to his being known as John Lackland. His (Henry's) efforts were not overly successful, gaining only a toehold which was walled with a palisade to prevent predation by those savage Irish. Those wild men were described as living "beyond the pale". Thereby the idiom. And the locals hated John so much he left in fear of his life. Later attempts by English kings to complete the conquest were met by the Normans as well as the Irish with the complaint that "you have no right to OUR country". FitzGeralds, FitzPatricks, FitzHughs, etc., are now 800 years later native Irish.

[Geoff Withnell]

You do have to be careful trying to decipher family names. Withnell is relatively a straightforward Welsh name. We had always assumed that my father's mother, born Mary Davies, was also Welsh as Davies is a common Welsh name. However, when we started doing serious research, we found her name spelled variously as Davies, Davis, or Davys - sometimes with multiple spellings on the same document! And the records from the time of her marriage to my grandfather indicate that she was from "up North". Since they lived in Lancashire, England at the time, that would seem to be Scotland, and further research lead to a connection with Davidson Clan.