We are pleased, to present the eleventh number of our magazine after an interval of three years, Magazine No 10 having been published in 1984. Interest in Clan Donald and the Clan Donald Societies continues in grow universally and subscribing members of the latter, including the Clan Donald Lands Trust, can now be counted in thousands rather than hundreds. We have come a long way since the first recorded evidence of a MacDonell Society existing in Glasgow in 1794, its membership consisting of of some seventy gentlemen whom Alasdair Ranaldson MacDonell, 15th Chief of Glengarry endeavoured, in that year, to persuade to form the nucleus of a Highland regiment then to be raised under his command and which eventually became the Glengarry Fencibles (1794-1802). This was followed a century later by the formation in 1889 in the same city of the MacDonald Society which, having gone into abeyance was reformed in 1894 and still flourishes today as The Clan Donald Society of Glasgow. Next to be inaugurated was the Clan Donald Society of Edinburgh in 1891 which has been active ever since and is proud of the fact that it is the eldest continuing Clan Donald Society in existence. In post war years CIan Donald Societies have emerged in Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America, England and Belgium, besides Scotland. In 1971 after the death of the 7th Lord Macdonald, The Clan Donald Lands Trust was formed and under its auspices The Clan Donald Centre at Armadale, Sleat, in the Isle of Skye which incorporates the Museum of the Isles, an audio-visual display, a fine library, a Visitor Reception Centre and the former Armadale Castle grounds. The Editor wishes to thank Mr. Donald M. Macdonald, President of the Clan Donald Society of Edinburgh for the assistance he has given, particularly in obtaining advertisements and those firms which have taken advertising space for their contribution to the successful publication of this eleventh number of the Magazine. N.H.M. |