Irish families as septs of Highland Clans

[NPG]

this brings up a question that I have had for a while. My last name is Hughes. I was told by some it is Irish and by others Scot, but while looking at tartans I found the name in Wales. But I also recently found it on Scotweb as Irish. Could it be considered both? Please excuse me if it's a dumb question. I am new to this.

This is not a dumb question at all. To the best of my knowledge the answer is both. I have Hughes in my family tree, they are Welsh, but I only know this because I can trace from where they originated. That being said it is also an Irish surname. Both I believe are derived from the Gaelic and Welsh respectively for fire. I'm not aware of a Scottish Hughes, but that doesn't mean that they didn't exist. The best thing I can recommend is to trace the line as best you can back to the old country. There are some good sites out there for this, though I prefer relying on family for more of an oral tradition to back up what the documents might tell you.

[neloon]

The Gaelic first name "Uisdean" (from which come surnames such as Hutcheon, Hutchison, Houston, McCutcheon etc.) was a Gaelicisation of a Norse name which roughly meant "always a rock". However, this was, in turn, Anglicised as Hugh so you will certainly find Hughes, Hughson etc. as Scottish surnames today with no clear clan connection though you might like to look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Sleat

Alan

[NPG]

The Gaelic first name "Uisdean" (from which come surnames such as Hutcheon, Hutchison, McCutcheon etc.) was a Gaelicisation of a Norse name which roughly meant "always a rock". However, this was, in turn, Anglicised as Hugh so you will certainly find Hughes, Hughson etc. as Scottish surnames today with no clear clan connection though you might like to look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_Sleat

Alan

Thanks for posting this Alan, very interesting information of which I was unaware.

[Roadkill]

interesting info. Thanks for replying! My mother has been doing genealogy research for years in her spare time and is still unsure about a lot. It seems records were not kept well in some poor rural parts of the south. Hopefully one of these days I will have it all together.

[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.