De Clare

The de Clare family of Cambro-Norman lords on the Welsh Marches were decended from Richard Fitz Gilbert who accompanied William the Conqueror into England in 1066.

Richard took the name Earl of Clare from one of his lordships in Suffolk, where Clare Castle still exists. The family name also has echoes in Ireland -- the modern Irish county of County Clare (which was historically part of the North Munster Gaelic kingdom of Thomond, dominated by the O'Briens, Kings of Thomond) was granted to the de Clare family in 1275. When the boundaries of the modern County Clare were fixed by Sir Henry Sidney in 1565, it was named after the family.