WHICH Scottish clan ended up with a warrior/poet on the ''wrong'' side during one of the most crucial battles of the Jacobite uprising and had a founding father best remembered for a particularly boring naval escapade? Why, the MacIntyres, of course.
Mention the MacIntyres to me and an image of calm, self-assurance and imperturbability always floats to the surface. This originates, I am sure, from my encounters with two legendary Scots journalists - Jimmy of the Evening Citizen in Glasgow and Ernie, a stalwart of The Herald in Edinburgh, both of whom displayed a steely determination in the quest for their stories. I never saw them ruffled.
In Gaelic, the name MacIntyre means ''Son of the Carpenter'', and the peculiar way in which the dynasty is said to have acquired this handle well illustrates that cool,
calculating side to the clan.
Way back when men wore the skirts, Somerled, top operator in Argyll, and Olaf the Red, King of the Isle of Man, were out a-pirating along the west coast. There was no love lost between the two sea raiders, Olaf having refused his daughter's hand (and presumably the rest of her) to Somerled.
On to the scene comes Maurice McNiall, Somerled's nephew who decided to speed matrimonial events along apace. Secretly he bored holes in Olaf's galley plugging them with tallow and on the morn - with Maurice on board - the vessel began to sink off Ardnamurchan.
Olaf called across for Somerled's assistance but was promised rescue only if he agreed to the marriage. He did, of course, and, according to Rennie McOwan in his history of the MacIntyre's, after Olaf and his team had been plucked to safety, wily Maurice produced wooden bungs to plug the holes and the galley was saved. Thereafter McNiall was known as An-t-Saoir, the Carpenter and his descendants Mac an-t-Saoir, Son of the Carpenter.
The poet who found himself on the Hanovarian side at the battle of Falkirk in 1746 was Duncan Ban MacIntyre, a forester from Glenorchy. He's recognised as among Scotland's greatest nature poets. The story is that he was most definitely a Jacobite sympathiser but was press-ganged into turning out with Geordie's Red Coats in place of another man. He is said to have laid down his sword in disgust and penned a wee satire to commemorate the battle.
In one of the surprises of the campaign the day went to the Jacobites. His lilting verse has returned to popularity this century, his most popular poem probably being In Praise of Ben Dorain, a tribute to his favourite mountain.
Duncan Ban MacIntyre, despite his incredible linguistic ability and compositional skills, was unable to read or write and owed an enormous debt of gratitude to the Rev James Stewart of Killin and his family, who encouraged him. The minister's son, John, even wrote down MacIntyre's works and prepared them for publication.
We sense that although he had a wee difficulty at Falkirk, the military life had some appeal. After moving to Edinburgh he served in the famous City Guard and later in the Breadalbane Fencibles. Although not one of the larger clans, the MacIntyres still made a lasting impression, both at home and abroad.
Although very much a personal selection, a few notables come immediately to mind. Dr Robert McIntyre became the first Scottish Nationalist MP in 1945 winning at Motherwell, and Prof John MacIntyre, as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, made history in 1982 when he met the visiting Pope John Paul II.
My most recent encounter with a noteworthy MacIntyre came while researching the Scots impact in Australia. Perthshire's Peter Macintyre was, in the 1820s and 30s in the vanguard when the great pasturelands such as the Darling Downs were opened up for farming.
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