Voting Member
May 20, 2026 2026-05-20 19:01Voting Member
Voting Member
The Voting Member is the active, participating member of the modern O’Dubhda Clan Society. A small, dignified annual contribution turns connection into recognition – and turns you into a citizen of the clan rather than a visitor.
You become a visibly named, officially counted member of the modern clan.
Your Voting Member emblem on your avatar
The Voting tier emblem – the O’Dubhda shield with flourishes – appears alongside your name across every member surface.
On your profile. Beside your name in the directory. Next to anything you post in the Seanchas comments. On the welcome desk at the gathering. It is the visible mark of being officially counted in the modern clan. Kinfolk are listed. Voting Members are recognised.
The directory in full colour
Your name lights up. No longer greyed, no longer waiting.
As a Voting Member, you appear in the Member Directory in full colour, with your tier emblem and your photograph, alongside the rest of the standing membership. Cousins searching the directory by name, by spelling, by homeland, can find you. You can find them. The directory becomes a working surface for the modern clan, not just a record of names.
A vote on clan affairs
You are officially counted on the items at /voting/.
The election of the Taoiseach. Members of the Council. Changes to the Clan Constitution. Choices about how the clan invests its preservation budget, where it focuses its research, which gatherings it underwrites, what positions it takes on cultural questions. Kinfolk read along. Voting Members are the citizenry. The clan is run by its standing members, not its administrators.
A new emblem, a new oath, a certificate of induction, two more castle wallpapers.
The Voting Member emblem
Your tier badge in PNG, SVG, and PDF – the O’Dubhda shield with the Voting-tier flourishes.
An upgrade from the plain Kinfolk shield. Use it the same way – on signatures, profile rings, family-history work, the cover of a memoir. The flourishes mark the difference between someone who carries the name and someone who has officially stepped into the clan’s modern membership. Yours to download and use as you see fit.
The Oath of the Voting Member
A new one-page parchment PDF, typeset in Uncial and Georgia, sealed with the sage and gold rule.
The Voting Member’s Oath builds on the Kinfolk Oath you already hold – the plain words of what being a standing member means. That you carry the name visibly. That you participate. That your vote is counted. That you uphold the Council’s decisions even when you disagree with them. Print it. Pin it. Frame it. There is a new Oath at every tier above.
The Voting Member Certificate
A printable parchment with your name, your spelling of the name, and the date of your induction.
Signed by the Taoiseach on behalf of the Council. The kind of thing that goes in a frame on the wall above your desk, or in the front of the family-history binder. A small, dignified record that you stood up and were counted in a particular year, alongside the other Voting Members of that intake. For the descendants you have not met yet to find one day.
Two more castle wallpapers
Roslee and Castleconnor unlock – on top of the Belleek and Enniscrone you already have.
The river-coast seats of the historical line. Roslee guarded the strand at Easkey; Castleconnor held the southern end of the Moy estuary. Each unlocks in the same six formats – desktop, phone, X, LinkedIn, Facebook, Zoom. Patron tier unlocks Ardnaree (the inauguration mound) and the Taoiseach’s Circle unlocks Carn Amhalgaidh (the ancestral burial cairn).
The full archive, your photographs in clan surfaces, the right to bring others in.
The full Webinar Archive
Every past recorded session, on demand.
The DNA + Genealogy series. The founding-charter sessions. Recordings of the past three Annual Rallies. Lectures from the gatherings at Enniscrone, Belleek, and Killala. Conversations with historians, archivists, and contemporary clan figures. Kinfolk get the live sessions. Voting Members get the back catalogue too – the full institutional memory of the modern clan, watchable in your own time.
The right to upload Member Photos
Your photographs appear in clan surfaces – “From the Clan” sections, castle pages, gathering galleries.
Photographs you take of the homelands, of cousins you visit, of your own family-history journey. Photographs from gatherings and Patrick’s Day Days. Photographs of your own children carrying the name. The Member Photos system attributes each one to you. Kinfolk read the seanchas; Voting Members add to it.
Recommend a Notable or a Business
Submit a cousin for the Notable directory. Add a business to the Business directory.
The Notable O’Dubhdas directory grew from member nominations – cousins finding cousins, sometimes in unexpected places. Voting Members can recommend new Notables for inclusion (we research each one against Wikipedia and primary sources before publishing). The same right applies to the Business directory: O’Dubhda-owned ventures get visibility and recognition there at your nomination.
Be hosted. Be named. Be expected.
The Family Exchange (visit)
Be hosted by cousins around the world. Stay a few nights. Walk the homelands with someone who lives there.
The Family Exchange is the host-and-visit board for clan members. Patrons open their spare rooms; Voting Members and above can request a visit. It is how cousins in Calgary end up sleeping in a Patron’s home in Killala, or how a Patron in Sydney welcomes a Voting Member from Boston. As a Voting Member you have full visiting privileges. Hosting privileges unlock at Patron.
Priority Patrick’s Day Gathering access
First-tier RSVP on every hosted Patrick’s Day gathering, anywhere in the world.
When a Patron in your city opens their door on March 17, Voting Members get the named-RSVP slots before Kinfolk fill the rest. At larger gatherings, you get a named place at the table. The map is the same; your standing on it is different. The Patrons who host can see who you are at the door.
Named seat at the 2028 Homecoming
Your name on the official roster of the next Homecoming, October 3 to 8, 2028 at Enniscrone.
Kinfolk are invited. Voting Members are expected. You get the first-tier registration window for accommodation, the named-attendee list in the Homecoming brochure, priority access to the castle tours, and your tier emblem next to your name on the badge at the welcome desk. The Patrons and the Circle host the gathering; the Voting Members are the visible body of the modern clan attending it.
Voting-emblem merchandise unlocks, and member pricing climbs.
Voting-emblem merchandise
A new line of clan-shop items branded with the Voting tier emblem.
Pins, ties, mugs, prints, and a handful of household pieces, each carrying the Voting Member emblem rather than the plain Kinfolk shield. The whole tiered-merchandise system runs the same way: each tier flies its own colours. Patrons unlock the Patron-mark range. The Taoiseach’s Circle unlocks the full coat-of-arms-with-banner pieces. As a Voting Member, the Kinfolk lines are still yours too – the upgrade adds, it does not replace.
Fifteen percent member pricing
Member pricing on the clan shop climbs from 5 percent (Kinfolk) to 15 percent at the Voting tier.
Applied at checkout across standard product lines. Patrons and the Circle stack toward the 30 percent combined cap. The shop is small and growing – O’Dubhda Whiskey from the Ballina Distillery, prints of the heraldry, books on the clan’s history, a small line of household pieces. Member pricing turns a casual purchase into an act of belonging.
A richer briefing, a formal welcome, a closer relationship to the Council.
The Voting Member’s Briefing
A richer note from the Council between gatherings, on top of the public Letters from the Clan.
Specific to standing members: which votes are coming up, what positions the Council is taking on cultural questions, where preservation money is being spent, who has just been welcomed home, what the Patrons are working on. The drumbeat for Kinfolk is the public Letters. The drumbeat for Voting Members goes one layer deeper – the live wire of the modern clan’s actual work.
A formal welcome from the Taoiseach
On the day you become a Voting Member, a personal letter from the Taoiseach lands in your member area.
Not a templated welcome email. A signed letter, addressed to you by name, welcoming you into the standing membership and acknowledging the line your branch carried out of Ireland. Archived in your member area so it stays with your record. The Council reads every induction list. You are not a number on a CRM.
What unlocks one rung up
The O’Dubhda Patron tier turns standing into stewardship. The Patron mark on your avatar. The right to host on the Family Exchange. The right to sponsor memorials. The right to bring your household in under your wing. And more.
The Patron mark on your avatar
The sage-gold medallion appears alongside your name everywhere – directory, comments, member pages.
Patron
Host on the Family Exchange
Open your spare room to visiting cousins. Patrons host; Voting Members visit.
Patron
Sponsor a perpetual memorial
Sponsor a perpetual memorial for a cousin – on the memorial wall, in the directory, in the archive.
Patron
Gift Memberships and Group Accounts
Bring your entire household into the clan under your wing – up to nine linked members at Kinfolk on a single Patron seat.
Patron
Up to 30 percent combined shop discount
Member pricing on the shop climbs to the 30 percent combined cap when stacked with promotions.
Patron
Patron-emblem merchandise
The Patron-mark range opens in the clan shop – pins, prints, household pieces, and tribute items.
Patron
Named recognition on the patrons page
The Patrons are listed publicly on the clan’s patrons page, by name and by branch.
Patron
Quarterly Patron briefing
A direct, candid quarterly briefing from the Taoiseach to the Patrons – where the money went, what got preserved, who was reconnected.
Patron
Ardnaree castle wallpaper
The inauguration mound at Ardnaree unlocks – the sacred ground of the historical O’Dubhda Kings.
Patron
The Oath of the Patron
A new parchment Oath, marking the step from standing-member to branch-keeper.
Patron
A Patron’s Letter from the Taoiseach
A personal letter on your induction, hand-written tone, archived in your member area.
Patron
And what waits at the top of the ladder
Taoiseach’s Circle – the black and gold medallion, the state of the clan, the long arc, the leadership conversations, the annual rinn, the Carn Amhalgaidh wallpaper.
When you are ready, the next door is open.
Become a Patron A Note from the Council
The Voting tier is where the modern clan does its actual work. If you carry the O’Dubhda name in any of its spellings and you want to be counted on the decisions of the clan rather than just informed of them, this is the door. If something on this page is wrong, or there is a benefit we have missed, please get in touch.
