Who Are We? We are descended from Gillean-na-Taughe, or Gillean of the Battleaxe, a fierce warrior born about 1210. He is said to have fought, along with his sons, at the battle of Largs in 1263. Gillean's great-grandson, Iain Dubh, or Black John, had two sons, Eachann Reaganach (Hector the Stern), and Lachainn Lubanach (Lachlan the Wily). Hector and Lachlan were granted independent charters to lands on the Isle of Mull from John, 1st Lord of the Isles (MacDonald); Hector at Lochbuie, and Lachlan at Duart. Hector, the eldest Son, married Margaret, eldest daughter of MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, via a Papal Dispensation dated April 14, 1356. Lachlan married a younger sister of Margaret in May of 1367. The nominal lands of the family were vast, including Lochiel, Duror, Morvern, Glencoe, Tiree, Jura, Scarba and Mull. Thus, the two dominant branches of the family were founded: Maclaine of Lochbuie and MacLean of Duart. The Maclaine family used the "MacLean" spelling until around 1600, when the present phonetic spelling was adopted. Many of the clansmen at Lochbuie retained other spellings of "MacLean" or "Maclaine", such as "MacLayne" or "McCLain". Various smaller families intermarried or banded together with the Maclaines. Such families include the McFadyens, MacCormicks, Blacks, Beatons, MacGillivrays, MacAvoys, Huies, and Pattons (all with over 200 different spellings). They were accepted loyal Clan members. The Seventh chief was Iain Mor, so expert a fencer that he fought on a stage in Edinburgh before the King and Court and killed a famous Italian swordsman, who had challenged all of Scotland. We occasionally feuded with the Duarts (the other MacLeans), but joined forces with them when threatened. John Og (also known as Iain the toothless - born in about 1470), 5th Chief of Lochbuie, was incarcerated on an island by MacLean of Duart after John Og's only son, Ewan, was killed rebelling against his father. Ewan got it into his head that he wanted more land from his father than he already had. So Ewan went out to fight his father to get what he wanted. John, who was quite elderly, asked the Duart uncle of Ewan's to help him fight his son. In the ensuing battle Ewan was injured, losing his right ear and suffering a blow to the back of the head. The horse reared and took off with its mortally wounded rider. "Tillidh mi fhathasd!" cried out Ewan. "I will return yet!" And so he does, say the old men of Mull. There is a legend that Ewan rises from his grave on Iona and rides on horseback to the house of a Maclaine who is about to die. The sound of hoof-beats from his galloping horse is a forecast of certain death. Ewan's uncle then took John Og hostage and imprisoned him on a small island off of Mull. With only an elderly retainer as company, John Og had a second son, Murdoch (known as 'the Short') who escaped to Glencannel to be raised by MacGillivrays. Murdoch later returned to Lochbuie with a bodyguard and recovered, by force of arms, the estate and castle of his now dead father. Murdoch's birth was officially legitimised in 1538. One feud with the Duarts was put to rest when the Lochbuie Chief and his followers came upon the Duart Chief and his band in the woods. Duart and his followers were asleep, exhausted after losing a battle to the Lochbuie Clan. Lochbuie's followers wanted to immediately attack. Instead the Lochbuie Chief crept up on the Maclean of Duart and twisted MacLean's hair around his Dirk and stuck it in the ground. The Lochbuie Clan then left. When the Duart Chief awoke to find his hair nailed to the ground. MacLean of Duart recognized that it was Maclaine of Lochbuie's dagger. He was so moved by the act of mercy that he ended the feud. The Maclaines of Lochbuie and the MacLeans of Duart, seven hundred men all told, joined the Marquis of Montrose in time for the Battle of Kilsyth in 1645. Hector Maclaine brought three hundred raw Highlanders to bolster the cause of Viscount Dundee in 1689. Five troops of horse (Berkeley's Dragoons) were sent to intercept them. Lochbuie duly defeated Berkeley's Dragoons after enticing them to dismount and attack up the slope of a hill on foot. Lochbuie and Duart then fought side-by-side at Killecrankie under Bonnie Dundee. When the Duart chief was imprisoned by the English, Maclean of Drimnin brought 500 clansmen of both houses out for Prince Charles Edward Stewart in 1745. But due to what proved to be wise advice, the Lochbuies did not, as a Clan, join Bonnie Prince Charlie in the uprising of 1745. Consequently, the Lochbuie estates were not lost as a result of the rebellion, as Duart's were. Donald, 20th Chief of Lochbuie, made a fortune in Java in the nineteenth century with which he cleared the estate of debt. The estates were lost, however, in the 1920s when it was claimed and appropriated by an English bondholder, in whose hands it remained. Many of us were forced or coerced by the Crown to settle the Ulster Plantation in Ireland as a way of subduing the Irish, or suffered economic hardships and were forced to leave Scotland. From Scotland or Ireland, many made their way to Canada, the United States, Australia, and other countries. We never lost our Scottish heritage, love for the sound of the 'pipes, and a special place is in our hearts for the land of our ancestors.