Clan MacNeil

History

The MacNeils are the Barra clan. Their own tradition makes them descendants of Niall, a king of Ireland, and the Scottish Register of Tartans repeats the claim that the family came to Barra in 1049. Historic Environment Scotland is more careful, saying only that the MacNeils settled on the island in the eleventh century. Either way, the early generations rest on tradition rather than documents.

The first lord who can be named from the records is Gilleonan MacNeil, noted in 1427. Historic Environment Scotland believes he probably built Kisimul Castle, the fortress on a rocky islet in Castlebay. In Gaelic it is Caisteal Chiosmuil, which can be rendered as the castle on the rock in the little bay. Beside it stood a crew house for his galley and its men, a sign of how much the family lived by the sea.

That seafaring life had a rough side. According to HES, a later family member, Ruari the Turbulent, was taken into custody for seizing an English ship, during the time of James VI. The clan remembers him as a wild figure. The Register adds a gentler detail: the MacNeils are said to have been hereditary pipers to the MacLeans of Duart.

The castle was abandoned by the middle of the 1700s, and a fire in 1797 burned its roofs and floors. Britain Express says that heavy debts forced the family to sell the lordship of Barra in 1838. Losing the island was a hard blow, and for a long time the chiefs lived far from it.

In 1937 the chief, Robert Lister MacNeil, bought Kisimul together with most of Barra and began to restore the castle. The same source says he had matriculated arms as MacNeil of Barra with the Lord Lyon in 1915, and that in 1962 the Lord Lyon ruled the Barra chief to be chief of the whole name. In 2001 the chief granted Historic Scotland a 1,000-year lease of the castle, for a rent of £1 a year plus a bottle of whisky. The Register shows the chief also recording the clan's tartans with the Lyon Court that year.