By Jonathan Tucker

Today (June 10, 2022) is International Heraldry Day. Below are the arms of Donald Russell Macintyre, chief of Clan Macintyre, as drawn and awarded by the office of the Lord Lyon. The clan motto “Per Ardua” (Through Difficulty) is at the top. The hand with a dagger (not a sgian dubh or dirk) is the clan crest symbol that all clan members are entitled to wear–the entire coat of arms belongs to, and can only be displayed by, our chief.

The helm indicates that one or more MacIntyres participated in the Crusades. The two red eagles represent the golden eagles native to the Loch Etive area around Glenoe, the chief’s glen. On their breasts are the snowballs we owed as a calp (death duty) to Clan Campbell at midsummer. The boat in the upper right quadrant is the Galley of Lorn, representing the region of Argyll in which Glenoe is located. The MacIntyres served as the Foresters of Lorn–those responsible for managing the land and the deer herds–under successive feudal obligation to larger clans (MacDougalls, Stewarts, and then Campbells) for centuries.

The hand with the cross in the lower left quadrant is a symbol inherited from the MacDonalds, a clan our progenitor Murdoch had effectively invented by arranging for the dynastic marriage of his uncle the warlord Somerled and Raghnilda, daughter of Olav, the king of the island of Man. Somerled became Lord of the Isles as a result. Their grandchildren included the progenitors of three important clans, among whom were the MacDonalds, with whom we intermarried and allied ourselves with for a few centuries in the region of Sleat on the Isle of Skye. The two white cattle ‘supporters’ represent the white cattle that MacIntyres were famous for raising at Glenoe. On the ground on which they stand are sprigs of white heather, our clan plant badge.