The History of the name Clancy

Dear Fellow Clancys,

I have no doubt that throughout the world today there are many people, like myself, researching their Clancy/Clancey/Glancy/Glannagh family roots and wonder would you like to share your findings with me. I am particularly interested in people that settled in North America / Canada before 1850. Some marriage records (North American) for this period show the parent's names of both bride and groom and most importantly the place of origin in Ireland. This information could enable me to connect long lost cousins.

Over the years I have searched and recorded many Clancy / Glancy pedigrees and would be happy to share these family details with likeminded people. Naturally these only relate to families who hail from our territory in northwest Ireland. We do not share a common history with the County Clare clan. It is all explained in my book if you are not familiar with our history.

Of course, I would also like to hear from persons whose ancestors (if they have connections to our clan) settled in other parts of the world.

This year marks the 370th anniversary of the breakup of our clan with the beheading of our chief James Murrah MacGlanaghy on the 7th April 1642 and in the same year the destruction of our castles at Rosclogher and Duncarbry. What happened to the principal line? We know from local tradition that Clancy / Glancy families from certain townlands were always associated with them but many too must have emigrated to pastures new - particularly America. Could someone out there have vital information?

I can be contacted by email via this site or by ordinary mail at the address on the book page.

Kind regards,

Maria Clancy
County Dublin
2012

The Clancys / Glancys (in Irish MagFhlannchadha) were part of the old Gaelic aristocracy whose history goes back more than a thousand years in Dartry, an area in West Breifne, which is partly located today in the counties of Sligo and Leitrim in north west Ireland. They are not connected to the Munster sept of the same name which evolved separately from the forename Flann before surnames came into common usage.

Flann, from whom the family name of MagFhlannchadha derives, is first recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters in 1114, and later variously written in the State Papers as MaGlannagh, McGlanthie, MacGlanagh, McGlanchy, Glanaghy, but now anglicised to Glancy and Clancy.

The Clancys of Dartry are most fortunate and immensely indebted to a survivor of the Spanish Armada, one Don Francisco de Cuellar, who left a written account of his stay with them in 1588. This document, dated 4 October, 1589, lay undiscovered for three centuries in the archives of the Academia de la Historia in Madrid. Don Francisco stayed at Rosclogher, Clancy's principal residence by the shores of Lough Melvin.

In 1659, Pender's Census shows William McGlanchy as the proprietor of numerous townlands in the ancestral territory of Rosclogher Barony, and also mentions that amongst the principal Irish names and their number in the same barony were: O Rourke 24 and McGlanchy 12. The Clancys / Glancys today in Counties Sligo, Leitrim and surrounding areas are descendants of these families and many are still to be found on the same lands as their ancestors farmed. Anyone of the name who can trace their descent from Dartry can link up with a clan whose origins are lost in the mists of antiquity.

Maria Clancy's book evolved from a collection of historical notes, jottings and photographs gathered over a period of more than thirty-five years - sadly many of the folk who shared their knowledge of the clan history are no longer around. It records the history of the Clancys of Dartry from their outset to the early part of the twentieth century when one descendant of the clan - John J. Clancy - was elected to Parliament in the First Dail, in 1918.