Our History

The Bards tell several stories of the Clan MacIntyre, many of which are woven in a rich tapestry of legend.

The first mention is of the Clan MacIntyre has them living on the island of Skye around 800 A.D.

The Skye legend is the most well known and whether true or not has become the often repeated version of the Clan’s origin. Historically they appear as always to have been subordinate to the Chiefs of Upper Lorn. Five MacIntyres fought in the Appin regiment in the “45” and five more are recorded as “wounded”.

To this day the close relationship with Clan Donald remains as evidence of a shared experience. It should be emphatically stated however that Clan MacIntyre is not a sept of Clan Donald having always been separate, but with the affiliation borne of a common relative and sympathies.

According to the legend: In Gaelic the name MacIntyre comes from “Mac-anTsaoir,” meaning “Son of the Carpenter”.

In the twelfth century Somerled, as a vassal of Olaf the Red, King of Man and the Isles was asserting his lordship in the Western Isles. In an effort in diplomacy he sought marriage with Olaf’s daughter Ragnhild. Somerled’s nephew Macarill assured his uncle that he could devise a scheme to win the bride. It is part of the legend that Macarill smuggled himself onboard Olaf’s galley and sabotaged its integrity by drilling holes in its hull which he plugged with tallow. As the galley began to sink Macarill suggested a solution of repair (with the wooden plugs he had kept) by relying on Somerled’s carpenters and by formalizing the marriage of Somerled and Ragnhild. With the marriage Somerled received greater freedom to rule the Islands and as a reward Macarill and his descendants became the “Sons of the Carpenter”.

Somewhere between 1100 and 1300 AD the MacIntyres left Skye and established themselves on the Mainland. We hear of a farm of Glenoe in 1380, and in most histories that is the reported home of the MacIntyres on the mainland.

According to the legend:Macarill’s descendants were warned by a guiding spirit only to settle where a white cow came to rest. There is in Scotland a site indeed that recalls “Where the White Cow laid down”. We do know that the MacIntyres were foresters to the Lord of Lorn and that their token rent first to the Stewarts of Appin and later to the Campbells of Argyle was a snowball in summer and a white calf before it was changed to a monetary amount.

As the family records have been lost, the MacIntyre chiefs cannot be listed with any accuracy, but the first chief of record was Duncan, who married a daughter of Campbell of Barcaldine. Duncan died in 1695 and was buried in Ardchattan Priory in a tomb worthy of his rank. Through the Barcaldine connection, the MacIntyre chiefs claim descent from Robert the Bruce. The civil war in Scotland provided a convenient excuse for many clans to settle old scores. The Earl of Argyll was not only leader of the Covenanter faction in Scottish Parliament, but he was also the implacable foe of many clans whose fortunes had been eclipsed by the rise of the Campbells. The earl's lands were ravaged, but royalist forces commanded by Alasdair MacDonald, "Colkitto", spared Glen Noe on the grounds that the MacIntyres were kinsmen. Many MacIntyres subsequently joined Colkitto's army, including the chief's piper. The chief, however, was with Argyll at Inverlochy in February 1645 when the Campbells were surprised by Montrose and routed.

James, the third chief, was born around 1727. He was sponsored by the Campbell Earl of Breadabane and studied law, being regarded as a good scholar and poet. On his father's death he returned to Glen Noe. When Prince Charles Edward Stuart raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan in 1745, James would have joined him but for the influence of his Campbell wife and neighbours. Many clansmen, however, slipped away and fought under Stewart of Appin at Culloden. The great MacIntyre bard, Duncan Ban, fought for the house of Hanover at the Battle of Falkirk in 1746. A monument to the poet's memory was erected in 1859 near Loch Awe.

The MacIntyres originally held their lands by right of the sword, but they had acquired feudal obligations to the Campbells. The payments were purely symbolic until the early eighteenth century, when Campbell of Breadabane persuaded the MacIntyre chief to pay a cash rent. The rent was then progressively raised to a point where Donald, the fourth recorded chief, was unable to pay, and he emigrated to America in 1783, leaving his brother, Duncan, to manage the estate. Duncan struggled until 1806, when he, too, left the glen. The chiefly line continued to honour their Scottish origins in America, preserving the armorial great seal, signet ring and quaffing cup. In 1955 Alasdair MacIntyre of Camus-na-h-erie recorded arms in the Lyon Court as cadet of the chiefly house of MacIntyre. The shield was quite different from that which clan historians believed to be correct. This unhappy state of affairs was corrected in 1991, when James Wallace MacIntyre of Glenoe, ninth of recorded chiefs, matriculated the correct undifferenced arms. The MacIntyres once more take their seat on the Council of Clan Chiefs, and even Duncan Ban's lonely monument is more accessible, with a Forestry Commission stopping place from which it may be viewed.

Collins Scottish Clan and Family Encyclopedia
by George Way
George Way of Plean and Romilly Squire © 1994
Glasgow: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Reprinted with permission from HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Clan Heraldry

Clan Item	Gaelic Name	Description
War Cry	"Cruachan"	A mountain near Loch Awe
Plant Badge	"Fraoch Grom"	Common heath or heather
Bag Pipe Tune	"The March of the MacIntyres"