Clan MacKinnon

History

The MacKinnons count themselves part of Siol Alpin, the clans that claim descent from the royal line of Alpin. Clan tradition names Findanus, said to be of the ninth century, as an early forebear and the source of the name. This pedigree cannot be tested against early documents, and it stands as tradition.

The place most tied to the early clan is Dunakin, a fortress on the Skye shore near Kyleakin. A well-known story gives it to a Norse princess, Saucy Mary, who is said to have stretched a chain across the narrows at Kyle and charged ships a toll to pass. It is a tale rather than a record. What the sources do show is that by the late 1500s the chiefs had moved from Dunakin to Kilmorie, near Dun Ringill.

In the days of the Lords of the Isles the MacKinnon chiefs had a seat on the Council of the Isles. The family held lands in Strath on Skye, built up its hold on Mishnish in the north of Mull, and kept a farm at Sliddery on Arran. The Church was close to the clan as well, and several MacKinnons are said to have been abbots of Iona.

The MacKinnons were for the Stuarts. After Culloden in April 1746 the chief, Iain Og MacKinnon, by then an old man, helped the fugitive prince cross from Skye to the mainland by boat. He was soon arrested and imprisoned, on a ship at Tilbury and in the fort, and was pardoned in the end because of his age. Accounts differ on how long he was held, from about a year to several years.

That loyalty left the family in debt, and the land slipped away. The last estates were sold by 1791, and the MacKinnons no longer held ground on Skye or Mull. Many clan families emigrated in the years after, to Canada, the United States and Australia, while others stayed on in the islands.

The chiefship outlasted the land. The clan today has a chief recognised by the Lord Lyon, styled MacKinnon of MacKinnon, and a society with members on both sides of the Atlantic. The motto is a later addition: clan accounts say it began as the personal motto of a MacKinnon branch settled in Antigua, and was joined to the older crest when the arms were registered in 1811, though the details vary. The older badges are the Scots pine and St John's wort.