The Clarke name carries two distinct roots that both lead back to the same word: the Latin clericus, meaning a cleric or scholar. In Gaelic Ireland it began as Ó Cléirigh, the hereditary name of a family of chroniclers and historians based in County Donegal. Their most celebrated son, the Franciscan brother Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, led three fellow scholars at Donegal Friary between 1632 and 1636 in compiling the Annals of the Four Masters — the most complete chronicle of Irish history from the earliest recorded past through 1616, written even as the Gaelic order the annalists served was being dismantled around them. A separate stream of English settler Clarkes, carrying the same Latin root, arrived during the plantation era and merged into the same modern spelling.
Today Clarke is one of the most widely found surnames in Ireland, densest in Cavan, Meath and the north midlands, and it carries real weight in Irish history: Thomas Clarke's signature stands first on the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, stained-glass artist Harry Clarke left some of the country's most admired church windows, and poet Austin Clarke carried the scholar family's literary bent into the twentieth century.
This collection brings that history into everyday keepsakes for the Clarke family: a woven cotton throw with the Clarke crest set on the Irish national tartan, a garden flag, a ceramic Christmas ornament, a tartan coaster set, a novelty license plate, an accent mug and a heritage T-shirt. Each piece is built around the Clarke name and designed as a gift for a family gathering, a wedding, a milestone birthday, or anyone tracing their own Irish roots. For the full story behind the name — from the Donegal scholars to the signer of the Proclamation — see this history of the Clarke Irish surname.
