Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 7, 1899

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
159
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MACKAYS OF MUDAL.
Sir — Can you, or any of the readers of the Critic
Monthhj, kindly inform me if William Mackay of
Mudal, Strathnaver, had more than one dauijliter ;
and if so, whether married, and to whom. William
Mackay was, I believe, maternal grandfather of
Captain Donald Matheson, Shiness.
M. M'D.
THE GLENN IBS.
SiE — In the concluding number of Dr. Fraser-
Mackintosh's most interesting papers on the " The
Minor Septs of Clan Chattan," published in your
March issue, there was a brief note on the above-
named family, the first sentence of which it may,
perhaps, be worth while to correct. I do not find
that we have ever been seated, as aflirmed, on the
Spey side of the Aberdeenshire Grampians ; though
on Deeside, and particularly on Donside, we have
been settled for more than five hundred years.
The earliest of the records published by Kennedy
in his " Annals of Aberdeen" (vol. II., p. 471), is a
Latin memorandum of a decision of the Burgh
Court of Aberdeen in the case of " Willielmus
G\enyon,lra Matthus Hulk ", 20th October, 1:«I9.
Nor have we '' in the course of time disappeared
from our original duchas". There are, 1 believe, a
number still of large tenant-farmers of the name —
traditionally they were called the " Bonnie Glennies"
— in Kildrummy, and the neighbouring parishes.
They were "Out," one is glad to know, both in the
'l.j and the '4.5. After the latter date, many of them
went south ; and I have to thank Dr. Fraser-Mac-
kintosh for his kind concluding remarks as to how
they sped in the learned Professions, the Army,
Navy, and Consular Service.
Of more general interest, however, may be a few
remarks on the derivation of the name, and the
dates to which it may be traced back.
The name was, I believe, originally " Ghlinne,"
the genitive of "Gleann" (Fir Oldinne, "Men of
the Glen"). This derivation was given by the late
famous Clan historian, Ale.'iander Mackenzie,
familiarly known as "the Clach" ; and it is in accord-
ance with the opinion also of a still more authori-
tative Gaelic scholar — Mr. Alexander Carmichael,
who has given me one or two instances of the name
in its Gaelic form in comparatively I'ecent times.
This Gaelic derivation is confirmed by the appear-
ance of the name in documents of the time of
Robert the Bruce as "del Glen." In Ireland,
however, we find it in its Gaelic form as the
patronymic, seven or eight hundred years ago, of
the famous gleeman, scholar and poet, to whom
is attributed the monk-satirising Aijiliwie mtic
CoiuiVmnv ("Vision of MacConglinne") of the
twelfth century, recently edited by Kuno Meyer
(Nutt, 1802). In the beginning of the poem, we are
told that "the place of its composition is great Cork
of Munster, and its author is Anier Mae Cunglinne
of the Onaght of Glenowra" — Locc don elcuiniu sr
(_'iiri-iii:h iiiiir Miiniia, ofKS persii, di Atirr inur
I'unijliiidi: ili F.iiniiniicht OlentutbraclU — "the son of
the Hound of the Glen, of the Onaght {recfr Eog-
hanacht) or descendants of Eoghan Mor, the son of
Oilill Olum, King of Munster in the third century,"
according to Hennessy. Still earlier does the name
occur, in the eighth century Jlistuiin Britouiiin of
Nennius, as the name of the river in Northumber-
land at the mouth of which was fought Arthur's
first battle in the sixth century — " the river Gleni,"
now called the Glen, a tributary of the Till ; but
which originally must, I think, have been the
AhJiaiiin, or rather AlH a Oltliniu- — the river, or
rather, burn of the Glen. And thus of the two
names Glenn and Glennie, the latter does not
appear to be a diminutive of the former, but the
former an abbreviation of the latter.
„^^ . ., , J- S. Stuart-Glennie.
Surrey, 9th April, Isitit.
P.S. — I have read with great interest the letter in
your current issue on the MacHardies, and can,
from my personal knowledge, confirm most of the
Braemar traditions which the writer recalls,
.1. S. S.-G.
THE CAMERONS OF GLEN NEVIS.
Dear Sir — Like Mr. Donald Cameron, whose
letter appeared in the February number of the
Ci'ltir Moiitldy, I have read Mr. Drummond-Norie's
charming work, "Loyal Lochaber", with great
pleasure. From certain expressions in that
portion of the book dealing with the Glen Nevis
Camerons, I also understood him to speak of them
as an extinct race. I am glad, however, to observe
from Mr. Drummond-Norie's reply in your last
issue, that he had no intention of conveying such
an idea ; but only that this branch of Clan Cameron
has now quite disappeared from its ancient terri-
tory, which is doubtless the fact. I presume that
your readers in general are interested in all details
connected with old Highland families, and this is
my excuse for mentioning other members of the
Cameron Clan who are proud to trace their descent
from the House of Glen Nevis.
My wife's father was so descended, being the son
of John Cameron, an officer in the 7!ith Highlanders,
who was head of the Dawnie family, an offshoot of
Glen Nevis. This John Cameron was the eldest
son of Donald Charles Cameron, of Dawnie (a god-
son of Prince Charles Edward) by his marriage with
a Cameron of Letter-Finlay. John Cameron's third
brother, Donald Charles, went out to British Guiana
at the beginning of the century along with his
kinsman John Cameron, the last of Glen Nevis.
They both became sugar-planters in Berbice,
British Guiana (Demerara), and whilst Donald
Charles made a fortune which enabled him to pur-
chase the estate of Barcaldine, Argyllshire, his
relative, Glen Nevia, did not meet with similar
success. He had not sold his property in Lochaber
before going out to the West Indies, as the last
sentence in Mr. Drummond-Norie's letter implies,
but parted with it somewhere about 1850, to Sir
Duncan Cameron, of Fassifern, owing apparently to
financial straits, through want of success in the
sugar enterprise. I believe that Glen Nevis ended
his days in one of the Channel Islands, and if he
left male off-spring I have never heard of them.
I am under the impression that there are descen-
dants in the female line, but I knownothing certain
on this point
An aunt of my wife now living in London, who