Clachan Duich - ancient church and burial ground, Kintail
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23rd June (Fri) 24th June (Sat) 30th September (Sat) 28th October (Sat) 26th January 1996 (Fri) |
A.G.M. at Cummings Hotel, Inverness. Speaker to follow. Departing 8.45am., our coach excursion to Sherriffmuir, Leaving from Strothers Lane, Inverness. Stops at Ballinluig, Sherriffmuir Memorial, Sherriffmuir Inn and Caithness Glass Factory and returning to Inverness between 6 and 7pm. Refreshments at stops. Coach fare £10.00p approx. 10am - noon - Coffee Morning at Old High Church Hall and sale of goods. All contributions in kind very welcome---- produce, baking, bric-a-brac, plants, books, stalls, etc. Clan MacRae Ceilidh 7.30pm. at Lochardil Hotel, Inverness. Supper and entertainment. Burns Supper 7.30pm. with the Inverness Burns Club at the Mercury Hotel, Inverness. Make early contact for tickets. |
Our Clan MacRae Ceilidh in October 1994 was much more relaxing. Members and friends gathered to socialise and to be entertained by a variety of artists. Most memorable was the gaelic singing, the Scottish songs and Highland dancing by some very tiny people! They were quite delightful in their minute kilts and waistcoats.
Speaking of Sheriffmuir we are now informed and very pleased indeed that the Memorial itself of 1915 is looking much better cared for. "Polished and shining" we are told. The immediate urgency of repairs appears to be over, but an on-going maintenance programme will be an obvious necessity. Therefore further donations towards the Sheriffmuir Memorial Fund will always be welcome.
To:
Sheriffmuir Appeal Organiser,
20 Crossgate,
Cupar,
Fife KY15 5HH
Scotland.
Tel. 01334 657770 Fax. 01334 657771
Sheriffmuir
Once again we are so grateful for support in spirit and kind from home and abroad, enabling this meritous battle ground to be honoured as it deserves. Not all the Jacobites fell. Farquhar, son of Alexander IX was severely wounded, suffering a fractured leg. His nephew John, who also survived, assisted him to capture and mount a stray English horse. They reached Fort William where Farquhar and horse remained for three months to recover. Eventually he reached Kintail with the esteemed horse. In old age the horse died and the iron shoes it wore at Sheriffmuir were kept as an heirloom in the Torlysich family for many years. One wonders what happened to the shoes?
Eildean Donan Castle played host to an open piping competition between 30 or so local young pipers in November 1994. Held in the lofty Banqueting Hall, characterised by its ancient legacies of the past, the kilted clad young pipers gave a stirring performance as only the young can. It is to be hoped that this promising event may become an annual one. Our president, Mrs John MacRae of Nairnside had the greatest pleasure in attending and presenting the prizes on that memorable day.
Incidentally, the New Year of 1995 provided Eilean Donan Castle with a much less welcome incident. Ressembling bye-gone days, intruders were deterred by some alert person, thus thwarting their ignoble intentions. Damage was limited to a broken leaded window which it is possible to repair. One or two inquiries were being made.
Clachan Duich - ancient church and burial ground, Kintail
MacRae War Memorial (1914-1918), Kintail
The Burns Supper on 27th January 1995, hosted by Inverness Burns Club, took place in something of a snow storm. Not unusual at this time of year, but it does cause some effort to adorn oneself for such an evening out, drive the car to the function suite, remembering that it could be much worse on the homeward journey. Undeterred some 200 guests many sporting Highland dress, attended, including a "Clan MacRae" table. After an appetising traditional Burns Supper we were entertained by a range of excellent speeches, wittily spiced with a sharp repartee. Songs and poetry held our rapt attention from the floor, often delivered in fluent Scots dialect of Burns' time. A most pleasurable evening was enjoyed by us all.
Widowed, just a few years ago, she took an active interest in MacRae and family history affairs. It is to her I am much indebted. Her throw away remark one day, "Have you found your place in the book"? (Clan MacRae history) prompted me to seek out my forebearers with some success.
A wreath was arranged on our behalf by Mrs John MacRae who also attended the funeral and gave the tribute on 6th March 1995. Mr. Fraser MacRae was a coffin bearer and Commander James MacRae sang "God be in my Head".
The service took place at Queens Cross Church. Aberdeen.
The book "MacRaes to New Zealand" is awaited on our shelves with much interest. One wonders who we will trace through the efforts of Mrs Molly Akers. See order form on next page. In the summer of 1994 I met a young couple from New Zealand, who were enjoying a working holiday, on the grassy slopes of the Kintail monument. From there they were moving on to Inverness.
Tourists should find this address helpful:
Inverness Tourist Information Centre, Castle Wynd, Inverness, Scotland.
providing brochures for specific areas etc.
Overleaf there is a fascinating article and a glimpse into 19th Century life, concerning the forebearers of Mr John MacRae, Inverness. It is included by the kind permission of the author, Mr Ian Mitchell and the West Highland Free Press.
Hamish Dhubh and Mairi at Pait, circa 1905
The MacRae's nearest customers: the keeper's house at Strathmore
IAN MITCHELL recounts the story of the last of the illicit distillers to operate on a commercial scale in the West Highlands, Hamish Dhubh MacRae of Monar.
Though doubtless the odd small scale still might yet be found in remote areas of the West Highlands, the last illicit distiller on a scale large enough to provide his main income must have been Hamish Dhubh Macrae of Monar.
Hamish's father, Alister, and his wife had originally come from Kintail in the 1840s doubtless driven out by the famine and land-hunger of that time to seek habitation elsewhere. But Monar even now is one of the remotest and wildest places on the Scottish mainland, accessible only by old drove roads. What brought the Macrae family there, to squat cockily just along from the laird's lodge at Pait on Loch Monar?
Possibly Alister knew that by building a house on an island in the as-then undammed Loch Monar, he would have "squatters rights" and could not he evicted. And around his little fortress of rough hewn stone, with thatched, battened down roof, he cultivated some barley and potatoes.
But he may also have felt that Monar was an ideal place to practice a trade which could support his wife and the two children Mairi and Hamish - ideal because of its isolation and the fact that the trade was illicit whisky manufacture. For his holding was over 40 miles, and hard miles at that, from the nearest excise office. And although large-scale whisky distilling on a legal commercial basis had started around 1820, illicit distilling was still widespread in the mid-19th century in Scotland.
Alister originally had his bothies at a place called Cosaig by the lochside, but when he was arrested by the gaugers and taken for trial in Dingwall he re-built his stills high on the side of Meall Mor where his son Hamish kept a lookout for the excisemen with a spyglass. The winter months were given over to distilling and the sum- mer ones to distribution.
As well as the local inhabitants of Monar and Strathfarrar further east, the Macraes sold to the local lairds, who turned a blind eye to their activities and even to the hostelries of the district.
Alister was a remarkable strong man, and, fortified by his own blend, lived to the ripe old age of 97. When they died he and his wife were carried back to Kintail by the same rough roads they had come to Monar; via Coire nan Each, Carnach, Kilillan and Loch Long to the kirkyard at Kintail.
The Reverend AE Robertson who knew the Macraes and took the photograph of Hamish and Mairi reproduced here, recalls that one of those who carried their mother all that distance observed "She was a big heavy woman too!" Large libations of the "Pait Blend" kept the porters at their work that day.
Hamish, or Jamie who had learned his father's trade on the Meall Mor bothy - where they often stayed for days in snowy weather, for fear of their footprints being discovered - remain- ed with his sister at their house near Pait (or Patt, as it was then called) Lodge and carried on the good work He too was a colourful character, con- sidering himself the equal of any man, and donning full Highland dress to visit the laird at Pait on Sundays.
Not only the local landowners would connive at the Macraes' works but the gaugers' work was made doubly dif- ficult by their approach up Strathfar- rar, when news of their coming would be sent ahead. On one occasion the gaugers were entertained, and got drunk at a house in the glen, while Hamish was given warning of the posse. The excisemen felt so ill next day they abandoned their search. (It was apparently not Hamish's whisky not that they drank but a legal blend, on which excise had been paid -- poetic justice indeed.)
But around 1900 there were fewer il- licit distillers to chase and the knot was slowly tightening around the Macraes. The then proprietor of the Monar estate, Captain Stirling, prevailed upon Hamish to give up his trade. But Hamish Dhubh turned this to good use and while at Beauly market where he had often sold his blend he informed the gaugers that, if he could receive the £5 reward, he could show them the location of an illicit bothy. He led them to his own distilling works, and pocketed the reward, while the gaugers took away the still! The ruins of his bothies remain there on Meall Mor, for those who will search.
Jamie and his sister retired to the old folks' house at Kilmorack, and on their deaths were taken back to Kintail for burial also ý though this time by road, not carried on foot as their parents had been. Their graves are still there, although the little island fortress which housed the Macraes for three quarters of a century was submerged by the building of the Monar Dam in 1959, amd the raising of the level of the loch.
The Macraes have passed into folklore, and the "Pait Blend" has become one whose taste no-one will ever know. Unles there is an old bottle lying somewhere in Strathfarrar.
New members always made welcome. Membership renewal date is 1st January annually.
Crae Cree Macara Macarra Maccra Maccrath Maccrae Maccraith Maccraw Maccray Maccrea Maccreath Maccree Maccrie Macrath Maccroy Macgrath Macgraw Machray Mackereth Macra Macraith Macrach Macraw Macray Macrie Rae Raith Ray Rea Reath Macrae.
Above listed are the official variants and sept
names of the clan, with Mc for Mac being acceptable
in all cases.
[Ron MacRae:
I've added Mackereth as at least one source links it with MacRaes.]