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Mark McClelland

British musician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ6768780
Source-derived summary

Mark Peter McClelland (born 30 March 1976) is a Northern Irish musician known best as the former bass guitarist of the band Snow Patrol. McClelland is a recipient of the Ivor Novello Award for his work on the album Final Straw. He is now the bassist for alternative act Little Doses.

Career

Mark McClelland was born on 30 March 1976, and attended Sullivan Upper School as a youngster. In 1994, he started attending the University of Dundee to study Financial economics. During his first year, he founded the band Shrug with Michael Morrison and Gary Lightbody. Morrison left the band in 1995 and with new drummer Jonny Quinn, they became Polar Bear and eventually Snow Patrol. On 9 July 1998, McClelland graduated with first class honours and was one of the only three students to graduate in the course that year. Additionally, he was the only student to graduate in first class for that course that year. A few weeks later, Snow Patrol released their first studio album Songs for Polarbears (a reference to previous band name Polarbear) under Jeepster.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Mark McClelland” as british musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mark, McClelland and British.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 1994, 1995, 1998—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976-03-30. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Mark, McClelland and British providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Mark McClelland”, the useful work is to connect “british musician” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6768780. VIAF identifies the subject as 235154260546024480004. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1994, 1995 and 1998.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mark McClelland”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mark McClelland primary sources, Mark McClelland archive and Mark research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mark McClelland”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Mark McClelland” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.