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MACDONELL OF GLENGARRY.
War Cry: "Creagan-an-fhithich " ("The Raven's Rock").
Clan Pipe Music: Lament "Cumha Mhic Mhic-Alastair" (Glengarry's Lament").
Badge: Fraoch (Common Heath).
1 N Gaelic lie is called Mac Vic AllisUiir," says Duncan Forbes in 1745. He holds of
the crown." He can bring out 500 men.
" There seems reason to believe," says Sir Walter Scott, " that Ranald, descendant
of John of lla by Anne of Lorn, was legitimate, and therefore Lord of the Isles
dejure, though de facto his younger half-brother Donald, son of his father's second
marriage with the Princess of Scotland, superseded him in his . . . right From
Ranald, upon whom a large appanage was settled, descended the chiefs of Glengarry
and Clanranald." He was murdered at Elcho in 1346 by the Earl of Ross.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the chieftains of Glengarry were involved
in many bloody feuds and brawls. In 1582 Donald MacAngus of Glengarry
complained to the Privy Council of the slaughter of his people by those of Kintnil
and damage done to the value of 120,000 (Scot*), ina raid made upon him by the latter
with 200 men. Kintail was ordained to deliver the Castle of Strome to him ; but there was a suspension
of this decree in 1583. In right of his grandmother, he was proprietor of half the lands of
Lochalsh, Lochcarron, and Lochbroom in Ross-shire.
In pursuitof the feud with the MacKenzies, early in the next century, his men surprised a party
of the latter at prayer in the chapel of Kilchribt in Urray, and set fire to it, while the MacDonald
piper marched round it, playing, till the shrieks of the miserable victims within were hushed in
death. But the MacDonaldg were overtaken at Torbreck in a public-house, which was set on fire by
the MacKen/ies, and thirty-seven of them were burned alive.
This feud was fiercely prosecuted in 1002, and Glengarry's son was killed in a fight near Ellondonan,
and buried in the doorway of the church of Kintail, so that the llaclvenzies might trample
on hie body every Sunday.
In consequence of a MticDonald who lived among the Grants being killed in a skirmish with the
Camerons in H;J>9, the then chief of Glengarry was on the point of attacking Locheil ; and this
bitterness seems to have been remembered, as in 1729 we find John of Glengarry, in a letter to the
Duke of Gordon, writing thus " : I incline not to have to with the Camerons, being the villains that
most trouble me."
The strange episode, almost fracas, caused by the Mac-mhic-Alastair holding his pistol in his hand
at the coronation of George IV., made much noise in 1821. In iS40 Glengarry sold his estate, and
with most of his clan embarked for Australia; and it was observed in the prints of the time, "We
cannot regard the expatriation of the heat! of an old Highland family, with its clan associations,
ito pipe music, and its feudal recollections, from the kittle of Inverlochy downwards, without some
regret and emotion."
The family of Glengarry, however, returned, and though now extinct in the line last referred to,
the chiefahip of this once powerful stock of the great Clan Donald legitimately representing the
Lords of the Isles is at present held by /Kiiea* Ranald M'Donell, Esq., of Glengarry, who matriculated
for arms some years ago in the Court of the Lyon of Scotland as chief of the clan, and twentysecond
Mac nihic Alastair.