Clan MacLaren

History

The MacLarens are one of the older families of the southern Highlands, rooted in Balquhidder and lower Strathearn in Perthshire. The clan society says they were the leading kindred there from the twelfth century, alongside the Fergusons and the Stewarts of Ardvorlich. That early date is the society's claim, and little documentation backs it.

The name comes from Labhran, or Laurin, a thirteenth-century abbot at Balquhidder. He is said to have been the hereditary abbot of Achtus and to have built the old kirk. Labhran is the Gaelic form of Lawrence, which explains the many spellings of the name in the records.

The clan gathered at Creag an Tuirc, the Boar's Rock, and took its slogan from the hill, using it as the call to summon clansmen in time of need. In the sixteenth century the MacLarens lost their standing as crown tenants. In 1558 a party of MacGregors is said to have killed many of them and taken over their homesteads.

Clan accounts have the MacLarens at Flodden in 1513, and suffering heavily at Culloden in 1746 on the Jacobite side. These are clan accounts of individual battles rather than documented rolls. After 1746 the clan shared the hardships that fell on Highland Perthshire generally.

The modern chiefship is well recorded. In 1957 Donald MacLaren of MacLaren and Achleskine matriculated arms at the Court of the Lord Lyon and bought land in Balquhidder, ending the clan's long spell as 'chiefless and landless'. His son, also Donald, became chief as a boy in 1966 and later served as Convener of the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs. He died on 22 July 2023, after being taken ill at the Highland Games at Balquhidder, Lochearnhead and Strathyre.

Clan sources report that his son has since succeeded to the chiefship. The clan has societies overseas, among them the Clan MacLaren Society of North America, chartered in Georgia in 1981.