What is a sept and what is a clan?
In historical usage the Irish term clann (‘family’/anglicised spelling ‘clan’) is identical with sept, an English term for a group of families who bear the same surname, live in the same area, claim a common male line ancestor and operate as a body corporate under the ordinary control of a chief. In modern usage sept has been truncated to mean a group of families who bear the same surname, live in the same area and claim a common male line ancestor. To distinguish historical from modern usage I adopt the convention of using clan to denote a sept in its extended historical sense as a body corporate under the ordinary control of a chief.
