Talk:Campbell of Craignish

Sources?

I am descended from a Mac Iosaig (Isaacs). This is one of the only references I have been able to find that suggests the Campbell of Craignish is our Chief of the Name. What is the source material for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.107.30.155 (talk) 01:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There are no sources listed for this article, so who knows. There is no Campbell of Craignish chief recognised by the Lord Lyon, and the Campbells of Craignish don't seem to be recognised by the Standing Council of Scottish Chiefs, either. So it doesn't seem to have been a clan with a chief, or even recognised now as a clan who had/has a chief. I think i read, somewhere, something by Alastair Campbell of Airds, Unicorn Pursuivant, that the Campbells don't have any clan chieftains. So who knows why the article says what it says. I would have thought that most MacIsaacs were from the Hebrides anyways, and not connected with the Campbells. MacIsaac is indeed a sept of Clan Campbell, look at this link for more on the MacIsaacs [1]. A large part of that Campbell website is taken directly from Alastair Campbell of Airds' three volumes of A History of Clan Campbell.--Celtus (talk) 08:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no current Campbell of Craignish, but they did have a Chief at one time. Clan Campbell and its various official branches do have Chiefs. I believe the current Duke of Argyll is the current Chief of the main branch. The Campbells of Craignish are an "unofficial" branch, so the waters get very, very murky. The Campbells are often confusing because they had a habit of forcing subordinate Clans to adopt the name "Campbell" as "unofficial" branches. I have read A History of Clan Campbell by Alastair Campbell, at least the part about the Campbells of Craignish. The included story is the "party line" as it were of the Campbells, but it has been disputed by local history and other works.

The Highlanders of Scotland (1902, Skene & Macbain) refers to the Clan as the MacDougal Campbells of Craignish, which suggests they were originally of Clan MacDougall stock. This doesn't seem too farfetched. Craignish Castle and Duntrune Castle were both built in the 12th Century and were less than 4 miles apart. Clan MacDougall built Duntrune Castle. Clan MacInnes and branches of Clan MacGillivray were left without Chiefs in the past, and they pledged fealty to the Campbell of Craignish without living on the Craignish lands. This only makes sense if they viewed themselves as family.

My ancestor was a Catholic Isaac(k)s that came from Scotland in 1725. The Clan Campbell tradition that I've seen was that their sept were originally from a sept of the MacDonalds of Clanranald. I am not sure where in Scotland my ancestor came from, but he shared a religion with the MacDonalds. Clan Campbell was mostly Presbyterian. This could be a potentially large clue. He also left Scotland in the same year that the English were raising the Black Watch, which could be unrelated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.107.30.155 (talk) 13:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, Clan Campbell has many branches but it does not have any chieftains. A chieftain must be recognised by his/her clan chief. The chief of Clan Campbell does not recognise any Campbell chieftains, so there are none (see [2]). So, no one from this "unoffical branch" is chief of anyone (including the name MacInnes and MacIsaac).

South Uist, (once a Clanranald possession), is still predominantly Roman Catholic. Here's a a small blurb on the MacDonald septs: MacIsaac and Isaacson - [3]. Look at this site - http://www.nationaltrustnames.org.uk/ - you can put in surnames like Isaac, McIsaac and MacIsaac and see where the majority of people with the surnames lived in Great Britain in 1881 and 1998. The name Isaac (1881) is located in the far southwest of Wales and England. But, MacIsaac and McIsaac are most frequent in the Hebrides, but a few (not nearly as many though) are in Argyll). Hopefully one day you'll be able to pin down for sure where he came from. I think his religion could be a good clue too. (BTW it was the British Government that raised the Black Watch, not England).--Celtus (talk) 08:08, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

The books I listed above discussed the MacInnes and MacGillivray issue. I cannot provide an ISBN as they are very old, but you can look them up on Google books. They say members of the MacInnes and MacGillivray Clans pledged that the Campbell of Craignish was their de facto Chief when they had been dispersed. They did this without being in the Craignish lands, so it suggests that they must have shared a common ancestry. This theory goes hand-in-hand with the Campbell of Craignish being referred to as the MacDougal Campbell of Craignish, which again points to the fact that they were not actually Campbells but had adopted the name. This was not uncommon for smaller Clans that relied on Clan Campbell for whatever reason.

As for the Black Watch, that is a matter of semantics. "British" suggests a joint government between Scotland and England. King George was an illegitimate king put in place by the English, and the English controlled the "British" government. You can even look at the First Parliament of "Great Britain" to see what I'm saying. It was comprised of 486 from England, 27 from Wales and only 45 from Scotland. The Black Watch was raised by an Irish-born Englishman under an appointed English king and an English-dominated Parliament, and it was raised to monitor the Highlands to protect England from the Jacobites. It may be politically correct to use the term "British," but it belies the truth of the situation. I use "English" to refer to everything the "British" do because the English control what they do as a whole. The Cornish, Irish, Scottish and Welsh combined cannot tell the English what to do, but the reverse is painfully evident. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.107.30.155 (talk) 14:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

So, over a decade later, and there have never been any sources added for the lengthy lists of names of "chieftains", and passages of alleged history contained in this article? The possibility thus arises that a load of complete claptrap has been sitting here since at least 2008 with no justification whatever! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.144.69.56 (talk) 00:21, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Challenge to Validity of this page

Please refer to the Clan MacEacharn wiki page for properly referenced sources. Clan Dugal Craignish is the second branch of Siol Eachairn.

Clan MacIness took refuge with Clan Dugal Craignish after Lord John MacDonald ordered them to be murdered by Clan MacLean. They took refuge with their cousins, the MacEacharns.

W Skeene in the Highlanders of Scotland makes it quite clear that Clan Dugal Craignish are MacEacharns. Amceache (talk) 03:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

There is nothing resembling arms "on the left", as the article claims, and the image on the right of the page doesn't correspond to the description given.Delahays (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Extension or new article

I have draft version of new article "Campbell of Barrichbeyan" but I am considering possibility rather to include it in existing article "Campbell of Craignish". Books dealing with subject have Campbells of Barrichbeyan and its collateral branches included within part intended to Campbells of Craignish. Nenad DNJ (talk) 09:13, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I think you should put it in a separate article, because we could otherwise end up with a ridiculously long article. For example, all of the Clan Munro cadet branches are listed in History of the Munros of Fowlis (the chiefs) but we still have separate articles for Munro of Milntown and Munro of Auchinbowie, even though the last is listed as a collateral branch of the first. Cheers.QuintusPetillius (talk) 11:40, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so mouch, it was exactly in my mind when I started with new article on Campbells of Barrichbeyan. It is just so long to wait, three months for approving... Nenad DNJ (talk) 17:17, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

References