by Jonathan Tucker

This is the 26th article about the life and descendants of Micum McIntire—the first of two articles about popular myths, legends, and misconceptions. This article will review and address a selected number of myths and legends about Clan Macintyre. Second and third articles will review and address some of the myths about Dunbar prisoners and Micum’s life.

Much of the history of Scottish clans and individual ancestors was ‘discovered’ or written during the Colonial Revival Period in the 1800s and early 20th century. These tales are often heroic, involve dramatic or romantic actions, and are frequently historically inaccurate. One of the ways you can tell that an unlikely story is about to begin is if the phrases “it is said” or “tradition recalls” or similar language is used. This article may be modified as new information becomes available.

Clan MacIntyre Origin Legends

There are at least two different romantic legends about the origins of Clan MacIntyre, both of which involve self-maiming as a way to dramatically indicate the importance of an action.

The Race Legend – This legend, which is shared by several clans, involves a race by water to first touch and thereby claim ownership of a piece of land. Two or three principal contestants, brothers or others, were very close together as they approached the land they each sought to claim. The MacIntyre chopped off his left hand (or, sometimes, his thumb) and threw it onto the land so that he could claim to have been the first to have touched and claim the land.

The ‘Thumb Carpenter’ Legend – In this save-a-ship legend, a MacIntyre shipwright saves his chief’s life by chopping off his thumb and using it to stop a leak that threatened to drown those on board. This legend has some of the elements of what we believe to have been the most plausible and best documented story, but again requires self-maiming in order to dramatize the shipwright’s allegiance to his chief. 

The More Likely Story: The most plausible origin tale was presented in Article 1 of this series, a portion of my version of which is excerpted here:

The Wright – Muriach (Murdoch) MacNeill was a member of a semi-royal family from northern Ireland that had intermarried with Scandanavian raiders and had settled in and among the Islands west of the mainland of Scotland, particularly on the island of Sleat—a location that allowed them to pursue a life of raiding and conquest among other early clans. This was in the mid-1100s, prior to the formation of anything resembling a distinct nation or kingdom of Scotland. The region was referred to as Dal Riata, and the blended peoples occupying it were referred to as Gaels—which is the origin of “Argyll” on the mainland, which means territory of the Gaels.

Murdoch received his nickname for using his skills as a shipwright to trick his foster brother Olav II (king of the Isle of Man) into allowing Murdoch’s maternal uncle Somerled to marry Olav’s daughter, Raghnilda (a very Norse name, and evidence of the degree to which early Celts and Vikings intermarried). Olav was a sometime ally and sometime adversary of Somerled’s, and a power unto himself as a seaborne warlord. 

Murdoch was a skilled shipwright. He may have been Olav’s principal shipwright, travelling with Olav and caring for his galley. On a summer raid together, OIav and Somerled’s galleys berthed for the night in a cove along the coast of Ardnamurchan, setting up camp along the shore. For some time, Somerled had been carefully lobbying Olav to allow a marriage with Olav’s daughter, but Olav kept rejecting Somerled’s offers. That night on the shores of Ardnamurchan, Somerled repeated his offer, and was once again rebuffed. After evening dining, Murdoch visited his uncle’s tent with a proposition—he thought he had a way to get Olav to agree to the marriage. Somerled accepted the offer. While the others slept, Murdoch went back aboard Olav’s galley and carefully bored holes in the sides of the vessel close in along the thwarts and just above the waterline of the calm waters of the bay. He filled the holes with plugs made of tallow mixed with sawdust, and carved wooden plugs to have ready to take their place.

In the morning, the raiding party broke camp, and the galleys set sail. They rounded the mouth of the bay out into the rougher waters and waves of the Sound of Mull. Repeated battering of the waves knocked out the temporary plugs and Olav’s galley began to take on water. Murdoch played his part, running around the galley apparently trying to stop the leaks. When the galley began to list and wallow, Somerled had his galley row over and he called over to offer assistance. Olav probably refused it at first, believing that his skilled shipwright would solve the problem.

But when Murdoch seemed baffled, unable to fix the problem (he had caused) and the galley’s sinking seemed imminent, Somerled returned and repeated his offer. Faced with a cold watery death, Olav accepted the offer. But, wait, the offer came with a condition. Before Somerled would throw over the ropes with which to tow Olav’s galley back to the safety of the harbor, there was the little matter of a marriage with Raghnilda to resolve. We can imagine Olav’s language, but he acquiesced and the matter was probably formally resolved above decks before witnesses before the galley was towed to safety and bailed out. Below decks, Murdoch–still working furiously as the shipwright he was supposed to be—‘discovered’ the holes and hammered into place the wooden plugs he had previously carved.

Murdoch’s trickery made possible a dynastic marriage between Raghnilda and Somerled. It resulted in Somerled becoming the pre-eminent warlord in area of western Scotland and the Isles—he was the first Lord of the Isles. As a result, Murdoch “found high favor” with his uncle and was granted the lands that now represent the MacIntyre chiefs’ territory–Glenoe and its surroundings in Argyll in western Scotland. And he acquired the nickname/title of “The Wright” (An-t’Saoir). His children and descendants were thereafter “children of the Wright” (Mac-an-t’Saior).

Myth: The MacIntyres Were a Sept of Clan MacDonald

Clan Donald long claimed the MacIntyres as one of their septs (a subclan with a different surname that belonged to a larger clan). Early on, MacIntyres may well have lived in several places within the sprawling kingdom of Dal Riata—some, for instance, may have come from Islay (“Ee-lah”) or Kintyre. But the MacIntyre chief and most of the clan lived in Sleat on the Isle of Skye, next door to the MacDonalds, and only later came to the mainland at Glenoe around 1250 or so.

MacIntyres lived close to the MacDonalds because we were related. The MacDonalds had succeeded Somerled as Lords of the Isles (one branch still serves as Lords of the Isles), and our progenitor Murdoch, who had been Somerled’s nephew, had helped Somerled to achieve lordship of the Isles to begin with. The MacDonalds were the descendants of Donald, one of Somerled’s grandchildren. Macintyres maintained our status as a separate clan allied with and supporting the Lords of The Isles, and established strong kinship ties with the MacDonalds, intermarrying with them, etc.

The main chiefly branch of the MacIntyres was never a sept of any other clan. Before much was known about clan histories, the MacDonalds (perhaps still smarting over the fact that we had “invented” them—i.e., had made it possible for them to come into being) claimed that we were. But we have always been a separate, independent clan.

That said, some specific families of MacIntyres became septs of other clans as we spread throughout the West Highlands and made ourselves indispensable as bards, pipers, and so forth. For instance, Clan Intier of the Clan Chattan confederation is the result of a Macintyre bard, pursued by Camerons, taking refuge with the chief of Clan Mackintosh (also the chiefly line of Clan Chattan confederation). Over time, that MacIntyre bard’s children became hereditary bards to Clan Chattan in the Central Highland region near Loch Rannoch. 

Partial Myth: Paying “Rent” to Clan Campbell & the “Loss” of Glenoe

Many earlier clan histories relate a tale of the MacIntyres paying a snowball and a white calf to local Campbell chieftains at midsummer as “rent.” And they usually conclude by declaring that the MacIntyres were later driven from the chief’s glen of Glenoe because greedy Campbells raised the rent. But the payment in question was not rent, and we were not driven from Glenoe.

The “rent” was instead a “calp” (a death duty) owed to the Campbells—a duty that had been imposed on the MacIntyres by the Campbells in the 1400s. Around 1440, there had been a disagreement over a cattle sale. A group of MacIntyres led by the chief’s two sons—Duncan Og and Donald Faich—set out to deliver the cattle and receive payment. John McGillenag, the foster brother of Colin Campbell, First Lord of Glenorchy, was there to receive the cattle, and tried to negotiate down the already agreed-upon price. When the Macintyres present refused, McGillenag drew his sword and tried to settle the dispute by force. In the struggle, McGillenag was killed by Johne Boy M’Yntier, a Macintyre from Letterbaine near the north end of Loch Awe, who was defending his chief’s heirs.

The Campbells present took no revenge (apparently McGillenag was not very popular), but brought Johne Boy and the two Macintyre heirs (Duncan and Donald) before Sir Colin Campbell for judgment. Because McGillenag was not a Campbell and because the MacIntyres were under the protection of the regional Stewarts (one of whose daughters Sir Colin hoped to marry), instead of executing them all, Sir Colin took three half measures. First, he took the two MacIntyre sons as permanent hostages, perhaps hoping to convince them to raise some of the famous Glenoe white cattle for him. Second, Johne Boy M’yntier probably lost the hand that had struck the fatal blow. And third, to appease the family of John McGillenag, Sir Colin imposed a calp on the MacIntyres.

The calp payments of a snowball and a white calf at midsummer may have later been converted to monetary rent, but if so, that ended by 1656. No new monetary rent was imposed until about 1770, when the Campbell chief of Breadalbane ‘reclaimed’ the right to acquire rent from Glenoe, a right the Campbells had held possibly as early as the 1200s. By 1770, it had been more than 500 years since the Macintyres had actually owned their glen as a freehold.

The Macintyre’s “loss” of Glenoe in the early 1800s was not the result of ever higher taxes imposed by greedy Campbells. It was instead the result of economic hard times, deaths in the chief’s family, migration, and the comparative ease with which fertile land could be owned in North America (upstate New York), to which the chief’s family had moved in the early 1800s.

There were white cattle in Glenoe as late as 1816, and it was being rented as farmland by local Macintyres in 1826, but there was a farm depression on in Scotland, and Glenoe could not support the growing family of Chief James V (Fifth). So the Macintyres drifted away from Glenoe to America because the land could not support them, and a successful life was more viable elsewhere. They were not driven from it, nor was it stolen from them.

Myth: Glenoe Is Remote & “Deserted” – Some stories about Glenoe like to emphasize its relatively remote Highland location, to the point of making it mythic and untrue. Glenoe is not and has never been “deserted” as some sources claim. There has long been at least one old stone house there, dating in its construction from at least the 1700s, and there are more modern outbuildings which replaced older buildings. The house is occupied by a caretaker and seasonally by an Australian family that owns the glen.

Nor is Glenoe ‘cut off except by boat,’ as is sometimes claimed, although that is certainly the quickest and easiest way to get there. There is an old military road that leads to Glenoe from the old cattle drovers’ town of Taynuilt to the south, via either a footbridge over the River Awe just north of Taynuilt, or a vehicular bridge further east and upstream. Anyone who is minded to negotiate the rutted, rough gravel road can drive an all-wheel drive vehicle to Glenoe. Just don’t do so without an invitation. 

*****

The most definitive and comprehensive current source for information on MacIntyres in general is the “Clan MacIntyre: A Journey Into the Past,” Martin L. MacIntyre, Regent Press, Berkeley, CA, 2018, second edition.  Copies may be purchased by contacting the author at martin.macintyre@juno.com .

The definitive genealogy is “Descendants of Micum McIntire,” Robert Harry McIntire, revised edition, 1983, Bookcrafters, Chelsea, MI.  This is often referred to as the “Red Book” among Micum descendants because of its bright red cover.  New copies may be obtained through the Gift Shop on this website:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/shop/?product-page=2.  Used copies can still be obtained from time to time through online booksellers.

Those interested in pursuing their own genealogical connections to Micum McIntire may submit question through this website at:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/micum-mcintire-genealogy-questions/