Dane

The English surname Dane (which is not derived from Denmark but from an old English word meaning a valley) has inevitably been confused with Dean (q.v.). In Ireland, however, Dane is primarily the name of a Connacht sept Ó Déaghain. In the "census" of 1659 it appears as one of the principal Irish names in Co. Roscommon; and two centuries later we find it largely concentrated around Belmullet in the adjoining county of Mayo.

GLOSSARY

Clan	From the Gaelic clann which means literally 'children'.
Mac-	From the Gaelic mac, meaning 'son'
O'	From the Gaelic Ó, meaning 'grandson', 'grandchild' or 'descendant'; Ní is the femine form of Ó, meaning 'daughter' or 'descendant'
Plantation (Ulster)	The redistribution of escheated lands after the defeat of the Ulster Gaelic lords and the 'Flight of the Earls' in 1607. Only counties Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh and Cavan were actually 'planted', portions of land there being distributed to English and Scottish families on their lands and for the building of bawns.
Sept	A family group of shared ancestry living in the same locality
Undertakers	Powerful English or Scottish landowners who undertook the plantation of British settlers on the lands they were granted.
Gaelic	This word in Ireland has no relation to Scotland. As a noun it is used to denote the Irish language, as an adjective to denote native Irish as opposed to Norman or English origin.
Erenagh	From the Irish Gaelic airchinneach, meaning 'hereditary steward of church lands'. A family would hold the ecclesiastical office and the right to the church or monastery lands, the incumbent at any one time being the erenagh.