MacLennan Tartan

Clan MacLennan

The Gaelic is Mac Gille Fhinnein, son of the servant of Saint Finnan, and the clan is also called Siol Ghillinnein. Its country was Kintail in Wester Ross. A charter of Alexander II in 1217 granted lands to a Duncan MacLennan who, as the clan’s own account carefully puts it, could be the originator of the line; the hedge belongs to the source and is worth keeping. An Abbot MacLeinan buried at St Blane’s on Bute in 776 is sometimes claimed as an ancestor, but that is a similarity of name rather than a proven link.

The MacLennans were beaten by the Frasers and MacRaes at Drumderfit in 1372 and fought beside the Mackenzies at Bealach nam Broig in 1452. Their defining disaster was Auldearn in 1645, where the chief Ruaridh led the clan for the Covenanters and was cut down with his men by Gordon cavalry. The chiefship did not recover: there was no recognised MacLennan chief for some three hundred years afterwards, until Ronald George MacLennan was recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1977. He died in 1989 and his son Ruairidh succeeded at the age of thirteen, then the youngest clan chief in Scotland.

The MacLennan tartan

The Scottish Register of Tartans holds exactly one MacLennan record: MacLennan, reference 2625, Clan/Family, dated 1880. There is no registered MacLennan dress sett, no registered hunting sett and no separate ancient or weathered registration.

MacLennan shares its design with Logan, and the sett was recorded anciently as predominantly blue. James Logan published a MacLennan threadcount in The Scottish Gael in 1831, and a Logan count taken at Dundee in 1793 runs without any yellow at all, which makes it materially different from the 1831 pattern. The story that the thicker centre line commemorates a battle honour is tradition rather than record. What can be said firmly is a negative: MacLennan does not appear in the Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842, so unlike many clan tartans it owes nothing to the Sobieski Stuart forgery.

A note on honesty: MacLennan Modern, Ancient, Weathered, Muted and “Logan/MacLennan” are all dye colourways of one threadcount, not separate tartans. Anyone offering you a choice of MacLennan setts is offering you a choice of colours. No MacLennan sett predates the commercial era of tartan weaving; the register date is 1880 and the earliest published threadcount is Logan’s of 1831.

Clan facts

Chief	Ruairidh Donald George MacLennan of MacLennan, Chief of the Name and Arms of MacLennan
Motto	Dum spiro spero — “While I breathe, I hope”
Plant badge	Furze (gorse)
Lands	Kintail, Wester Ross. A present clan seat is not reliably recorded; published sources disagree.

References

1. MacLennan tartan — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Clan MacLennan — Wikipedia
3. Vestiarium Scoticum — Wikipedia