Clan Echoes

Skye Pipe Band, which wears the Macdonald of Sleat tartan, is going from strength to strength, Colonel Jock MacDonald, President, reported to the annual general meeting in Portree. The band can now muster 15 pipers and 9 drummers including the drum-major. Piping classes are being well attended in various parts of the island. The band’s first engagement for the summer was at the opening of Skye Week. With Colonel MacDonald on the committee are Major General Harry MacDonald and Dr A. MacDonald.

Mr John A. Macdonald, Moy Farm, Banavie, near Fort William, who died in May 1963, was born on Heisker Island where he lived until 1942. When he and his brother Alastair came to the mainland the island, with its centuries of clan associations, was left uninhabited.

MacDonells will be interested to know that at Invergarry a committee has been formed to arrange for the care and maintenance of Kilfinnan burial ground at the head of Loch Lochy in Inverness-shire where so many of the MacDonells of Glengarry are buried. At Kilfinnan is the mausoleum of the chiefs of the Clan. The committee hope to trace descendants of the owners of lairs in the old graveyard at home or abroad and to raise sufficient funds to carry out repairs to the walls. The chairman of the committee is Mr D.C.C. Robertson, Glengarry’s representative on Inverness County Council, the treasurer is Mr Robert MacDonald and the committee members include Alexander MacDonell and Mr John MacAskill.

Chairman of Fort Augustus Shinty Club, which has been revived after a lapse of many years, is Lieutenant Commander W.D.D. MacDonald, of Inchnacardoch Hotel, Fort Augustus.

Commissioners of the Crofters’ Commission include Air Vice-Marshal D.M.T. Macdonald, who is concerned with Caithness, eastern districts of Sutherland, Ross-shire and the Inverness-shire mainland. Commissioner for Skye, Harris and the Small Isles is Mr I. MacDonald.

Mr N.A. MacDonald, MA, is President of the Piping Society of Inverness, which has weekly meetings at the Castle. Among those who took part in a ceihdh which followed the society’s annual general meeting in 1964, were Mr W. MacDonald, Benbecula, and Mr W.M. MacDonald, who played the ground of ‘MacCrimmon’s Sweetheart’.

Miss Mary M. Macdonald, who for 10 years was the representative of the National Trust for Scotland at Crathes Castle on Deeside, has taken up a similar appointment at Craigievar Castle on Deeside. Crathes Castle is famous for its ghost – the Green Lady – a young woman who carries a baby in her arms. Miss Macdonald did not see the ghost while she was warden, but recalls that the skeleton of a small child was discovered while workmen were making alterations to a fireplace.

Dr D. Macdonald, of Fort William, has been appointed medical adviser to the new pulp mill, which has been built near Annat on the shore of Loch Eil.