These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
An Clár· Irish · main form · validated name
Clare· English · main form
Place & story
Between ocean and estuary
Lewis places Clare between the Atlantic, Galway Bay, Lough Derg and successive reaches of the Shannon. These water boundaries face different kinds of travel: an exposed western coast, a broad estuary and an inland lake are not interchangeable settings. They help explain why a county connection may lead towards Limerick, Galway or a local port. A townland’s precise shore or river valley can matter more to its historical relationships than the county label alone.[2]
Thomond is a larger historical idea
The 1837 account treats Clare as a central part of Thomond and records districts associated with O’Brien, MacNamara and other lordships. Some territorial names survive in later baronies, but the boundaries should not be assumed to coincide exactly across centuries. The county’s political history is consequently useful context for land and institutional records, while a list of chiefs is not a substitute for evidence connecting named individuals across generations.[2]
County town and downstream port
Lewis’s Ennis entry provides a local example of connected places: produce moved through the Fergus towards Clare, which he described as Ennis’s port. The market town and its shipping outlet were distinct settlements serving a shared economy. Such distinctions can clarify an ancestor’s occupation or a merchant’s account. Preserve both the exact place and the administrative unit in the original document; a county, town, barony and historical region can all appear under related names while describing different areas.[3]
Figures cover the whole county including its cities. CSO recommends this series for long-term comparison, although minor boundary changes have occurred.
View population figures
County Clare, including its cities — census population
placenames