Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

“Story of the Clans … Chief of a Red Indian Tribe” by G. B. MacGillivray (of Fort William, Ontario). July 12, 1962. Weekly Scotsman

The article is written by a Canadian, George B. MacGillivray. He notes that a half-Indian warrior, Alexander MacGillivary, led 5000 armed men during the American Revolution. It also reports that the MacGillivrays were quite numerous at Culloden around 100 men. There was one Colonel-in-Chief, Alexander of Dunmaglass, who succumbed in the battle. I should also mention that my great uncle, Alexander MacGillivary, was piper for the 16th Battalion of the Canadian Scottish during World War One. He died at the Battle of Passchendaele when leading his men ‘over the parapet’.

Our clans

The people of Eigg fought alongside the MacGillivarys at the Battle of Culloden in 1746; many of the Eigg people and the MacGillivarys were staunch Catholics, unlike much of the rest of Scotland who were Protestants.

Camille Dressler’s book, “Eigg the Story of an Island”(2007), provides many useful appendices, such as the census of the Small Isles 1764-1765. The book also shows the denominations of the islanders as Protestants or Papists. Another appendix shows the Eigg “Prisoner List” of those Eigg people captured at or after Culloden, and then transported on “The Pamela” to America (September 1746). It seems 15 men were transported, including MacKinnons, MacLeans, and MacDonalds; some of these could have been related to my great grandparents, although I haven’t done further research. The third appendix provides a very useful genealogy of the Laig and Cnoc Oilteag MacDonalds (author: Duncan Ferguson in his book, The Island of Eigg). 

‘Dunmaglass’ or ‘Acharacle’

As an aside, the date of the article caught my attention: 12 July 1962. This was around the time my parents bought a new house in Billericay, Essex, England. I was a young teenager at the time, and I can remember my mother was talking about giving the house a name. This in itself was a little absurd, as it was a semi-detached, and so-called ‘cookie-cutter’ house. It was not the sort of house you would normally give a name. However, my mother was not perturbed by this fact. I can remember her saying we should call it by the war-cry of the MacGillivrays, which she said was “Dun-ma-glass”. I asked her what that meant, and she replied, “It means ‘touch not this cat without a glove’.” My boyish pugilistic mind was quite impressed by this answer. I was convinced that this was the name finally given to the house.

Recently, however, my younger brother, Gavin, informed me that the house was “Acharacle”, the village in Argyll. It was the birth place of her father, Hector MacGillivray, a descendant of the heroic MacGillivrays of Culloden fame. In other words, this article no doubt inspired the naming of the house. Perhaps later, it also inspired her to ask me to write the ‘family history’.

Implicit here is the fact that her father’s house in Acharacle was called “Woodend Cottage”. When she lived in Dunoon in 1942, she lived at “Rannoch Cottage”, and before this, at “Mardrumho Cottage”. Of course, when she lived in Glasgow, her family lived in various tenement buildings with ‘no names’ – that is, they were depersonalised. Thus, naming the house in Billericay was perhaps some kind of sub-conscious goal to achieve a rural or middle class ideal in her journey through life.