Our Clan
A millennium of history
Irish kings, Highland chiefs, Jacobite loyalty, and a family that endured. This is the story of Clan MacLachlan.
For nearly a thousand years, Clan MacLachlan has held its lands on the eastern shore of Loch Fyne in Argyll, and has had a hand in many of the great turns of Scottish history.
Chapter 1
Origins: sons of the land of lochs
According to ancient Irish genealogies, the MacLachlans descend from the O’Neills, High Kings of Ireland. In the early 11th century Aodh Anrothan O’Neill (“Hugh the Solitary”), a prince of Ulster, left Ireland for Scotland and married an heiress of the royal house of Argyll, gaining the districts of Cowal and Knapdale.
From that union came the clan. The name MacLachlan means “son of Lachlan,” and Lachlan itself comes from the Gaelic Lachlann, “land of lochs,” a name long used in the family of the High Kings. Clan MacLachlan shares this descent with the Lamonts, the MacEwens of Otter, the MacNeils and the MacSweens, all said to spring from Anrothan’s line.
Medieval chiefs
1164
By tradition, the MacLachlans back Somerled, Lord of Argyll, in his stand against the Scottish crown.
1222
The clan gains the lands of Glasrie, near Dunadd, as a dowry when a MacLachlan marries the daughter of Suibhne Ruadh, the Red-haired Sween, builder of Castle Sween.
1249
Lachlan Mòr, 3rd Chief, is ordered by King Alexander II to send his taxes “by the fleetest messenger” and ties the money bags to the antlers of a roebuck. Two roebucks support the chief’s coat of arms to this day.
1292
Gillescop MacLachlan, 4th Chief, is one of the twelve barons whose lands form the new sheriffdom of Argyll.
1308
Gillescop supports Robert the Bruce and sits in the King’s first Parliament at St Andrews.
1314
Old Castle Lachlan first appears in the written record. Gillescop makes a grant to the Friars of Glasgow, and the hand of St Columba holding a cross enters the MacLachlan arms.
Allies, feuds and a free barony
The 15th and 16th centuries bound the MacLachlans to their powerful neighbors, the Campbells, through alliances and marriages. Legend says the clan’s guardian brounie was so angry at the first MacLachlan–Campbell wedding that he spirited away the wedding feast.
In 1432 the last MacEwen chief of Otter lost his lands to the Campbells, and many MacEwens came under MacLachlan protection, beginning a bond that lasted five centuries. In 1574 Archibald MacLachlan, 12th Chief, received a charter confirming his lands of Cowal and Glasrie, and in 1680 the MacLachlan lands were erected into a free barony under the name of Strathlachlan.
The 17th century was one of civil strife. MacLachlans fought under Montrose for Charles I at the Battle of Alford (1645), and were with Viscount Dundee at Killiecrankie (1689).
“Then the crisis of my misfortunes has arrived also.”
Lachlan MacLachlan, 17th Chief, on hearing that Prince Charles had landed, 1745
Loyal to the Stuarts: the Jacobite years
The MacLachlans were steadfast Jacobites. In 1715 Lachlan, 16th Chief, welcomed the Old Chevalier, James VIII, and served as a colonel with the Earl of Mar. Tradition says a Campbell of Ardkinglas pursued him for years afterwards and finally shot him.
In 1745 his son Lachlan, 17th Chief, raised the clan and joined Prince Charles Edward Stuart at Holyrood, among the first to answer the call. Government militia occupied Castle Lachlan, and the chief’s family took refuge with the Stewarts of Appin.
At Culloden, on 16 April 1746, Lachlan led a regiment of about 115 MacLachlans and 182 MacLeans of Mull in the front line of the Jacobite charge. They broke through the government line at Barrell’s Regiment before being overwhelmed. The chief was killed by a cannonball. Their charge cry, “Life or Death,” became the war cry of Clan MacLachlan.
The chief’s horse. Legend says that after Culloden the chief’s riderless horse broke away from the survivors, swam across Loch Fyne, and was the first to bring the news home. It lived on in the ruins of the castle, and some say its whinny can still be heard there. More legends →
After Culloden
The dead chief’s lands were confiscated, and Old Castle Lachlan, probably shelled by a government ship, was abandoned for good. Through the intervention of the Duke of Argyll, the estate was restored in 1749 to the young Robert MacLachlan, 18th Chief, then 14 years old.
When many Highland landlords cleared their tenants for sheep, Donald MacLachlan, 19th Chief, built the village of Newton (also called Ballure) so his tenants could stay as crofters and fishermen. Near the end of the 18th century he also built the new Castle Lachlan, still the chief’s home today.
The modern clan
John MacLachlan of MacLachlan, 23rd Chief, commanded a battalion of the Argyll Volunteers in the First World War. His daughter, Madam Marjorie Maclachlan of Maclachlan, succeeded him in 1942 and led the clan for over half a century. During the Second World War she aided the Allied war effort, escaping France under fire as the German army advanced. In 1979 she presided over the founding of the worldwide Clan Maclachlan Society.
On her death in 1996 she was succeeded by her son, Euan Maclachlan of Maclachlan, 25th Chief, who lives at Castle Lachlan today.
This is your history too.
If your family carries the MacLachlan, MacEwen or Gilchrist name in any spelling, the story continues with you.