In a message dated 6/20/02 6:07:34 PM Eastern Daylight Time, SCT-ARGYLL-D-request@rootsweb.com writes: > One more thing that has been puzzling me - Glendaruel is referred to > as the Clachan of Glendaruel - Is a Clachan smaller than a village? > > >From my reading of the old accounts, a clachan is a small cluster of homes generally associated with a farm. It appears that, at least in some parishes, one individual would rent a farm for a period of time and others would join him in working it. Many times they were part of an extended family. One source said that there might be as many as 50 people living in a clachan. A Scottish Gaelic dictionary says that it comes from the Irish Gaelic word for a group of monastic stone cells.