{"id":20,"date":"2014-03-29T09:01:06","date_gmt":"2014-03-29T09:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/?p=20"},"modified":"2024-08-23T10:56:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T10:56:25","slug":"todays-ardnamurchan-maciains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/todays-ardnamurchan-maciains\/","title":{"rendered":"Belonging to Ardnamurchan Clan MacIain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scattering of the Ardnamurchan MacIains which began early in the 17th<\/sup> century means that it is unusually difficult for its present members to establish their sense of belonging to the clan.\u00a0 Your situation is further complicated by there being two MacIain septs within Clan MacDonald, those of Ardnamurchan and Glencoe.\u00a0 While the Ardnamurchan MacIains are descended from the followers of Iain Sprangach, those of Glencoe are descended from Iain Fraoch MacDonald, who was Sprangach’s brother, Angus Og of Islay’s son.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The MacIain Tartan<\/p><\/div>\n

We don’t believe that DNA tests help, particularly in the circumstances of the Ardnamurchan MacIains.\u00a0 While the MacIain clan is a sept of the much larger Clan Donald, it would always have been a mixed population.\u00a0 When Iain Sprangach took over the land after Bannockburn, he would have inherited the resident population left behind when the MacDougals fled.\u00a0 An even more mixed population would have arisen over the centuries from the geographical position of the peninsula of Ardnamurchan: it blocks the main sea route north-south along the west coast of Scotland.\u00a0 In days when travel by sea was far more important than by land, many people would have come to the peninsula and settled.\u00a0 What bound this disparate clan together was fealty to the clan chief.<\/p>\n

The clan tartan is shown. \u00a0As with all these things, we have to exercise some care: the modern concept of tartans didn’t come into being until late in the 18th century, by which time our MacIains were long scattered, but that did not prevent their descendants establishing the tartan and heraldry of the clan. \u00a0The tartan of the Ardnamurchan MacIains is a simple but very beautiful one, well suited to the landscape of their home.\u00a0 Particularly in autumn, these are the colours of Ardnamurchan’s hills.<\/p>\n

\"MacIain<\/a>

MacIain Arms<\/p><\/div>\n

In heraldic terms, the arms of Ardnamurchan Clan MacIain are described as \u201cOr, a lymphad, sails furled and oars in action, Sable, between in fess dexter an eagle, displayed, Gules, and sinister a buckle, of the last.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u2018Or\u2019 means the background is gold.\u00a0A \u2018lymphad’ is an heraldic ship based on the Scottish berlinn, wikipedia entry\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0The sails are \u2018furled\u2019 and the oars \u2018in action\u2019.\u00a0\u2018Sable\u2019 means the lymphad is black.\u00a0\u2018Fess\u2019 is a horizontal division across the shield, and the dexter means to the right, as seen by the carrier from behind,\u00a0in which there\u2019s an eagle ‘displayed\u2019 – which means the wings are spread. The spreading has a significance it indicates the bearer\u2019s role as protector.\u00a0\u2018Gules\u2019 is red, and refers back to the eagle.\u00a0\u2019Sinister\u2019 is left,\u00a0and that the buckle is \u2018of the last’ means it has the same colour as the previous mentioned item, the eagle, i.e., \u2018Gules\u2019, red.<\/p>\n

Two things stand out.\u00a0 The ship is a berlinn.\u00a0 While these were the main mode of passenger and freight transport up and down the Scottish west coast for generations, they were also the man-o’-war of the feuding clans.\u00a0 The power which Clan MacIain held in the Lordship of the Isles came, in large part, from their holding Mingary Castle, which dominated and controlled the northern entrance to the Sound of Mull.\u00a0 From the bays on either side of the castle, Port Ur to the east and Port na Spainteach to the west, MacIain fighting ships would have launched both to battle and to intercept passing merchantmen.<\/p>\n

The bird on the left is an eagle. \u00a0There are two types of eagle flying across Ardnamurchan, the golden and the far larger sea eagle. \u00a0The sea eagle is Europe’s largest bird, so big it is sometimes described as a ‘flying barn door’.\u00a0 As well as a bird of myth and legend, it was the great predator of the Scottish skies, to the extent that, by 1916, it had been hunted to extinction.\u00a0 It has been reintroduced, and now once again soars across Ardnamurchan.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Badge of the Ardnamurchan MacIains.<\/p><\/div>\n

The badge of \u00a0Clan MacIain is shown here. \u00a0It features the heraldic ‘eagle displayed’ and the motto of Clan MacIain, \u201cIn Hope I Byde\u201d. \u00a0For a clan that has been scattered to the corners of the Earth, yet still has so many members who feel an intense loyalty to it, it’s a truly great motto.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The scattering of the Ardnamurchan MacIains which began early in the 17th century means that it is unusually difficult for its present members to establish their sense of belonging to the clan.\u00a0 Your situation...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15,57],"tags":[18,26,27,16,25,23,19,17,6,85,22,28,46],"class_list":["post-20","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-entries","category-clan-maciain","category-clanmembership","tag-ardnamurchan","tag-badge","tag-berlinn","tag-clan","tag-crest","tag-fraoch","tag-glencoe","tag-macdonald","tag-maciain","tag-mingary-castle","tag-og","tag-sea-eagle","tag-sprangach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.clanmaciain.com\/maciain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}