Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/17

2 about 1404. Hector Roy, his son, was born about 1370, and was killed at the battle of Harlaw in 1411. Colin Campbell of Lochow succeeded his father, Gillespie, in 1372, and died in 1413. Murdoch Dubh of Kintail died in 1375, and was succeeded by his son, Murdoch of the Bridge. We do not know in what year Neil Mackinnon died, but we know that Lachlan, his son, was chief of the Clan Fingon in 1409. The genealogies of the Macdonalds and the Macdougalls were copied from the Book of Ballimote, which was compiled in 1383.

The foregoing facts render it fairly certain that the genealogies in the Skene MS. were originally written at least as early as the year 1385. It is no doubt true that there were a few names—but they are very few indeed—inserted in it at a later date. We should therefore call it either the Skene MS. or the MS. of 1385. But surely the discoverer and publisher of it deserves the name, especially as we do not know who the writer of it was, or by whom or where it was preserved.

Some persons tell us that the Skene MS. was written by Irish scribes, and that, as a consequence, its genealogies cannot be correct. It is possible, but not at all probable, that it was originally written by Irish scribes. But the Irish scribes were neither fools nor knaves. They would never dream of writing the genealogies of the Highland clans, except from information collected by or from trustworthy men in Scotland.

The accuracy of the genealogies in the Skene MS. is mainly due to the fact that there were Highlanders in all ages until very lately who could trace themselves back in regular order for nine or ten generations. John Maclean, the poet, was born in Tiree in 1787, and came to Nova Scotia in 1819. Shortly before 1848 he gave to Dugald MacEachern, who was also a poet and a native of Tiree, the names of all his ancestors back to Lachlann Fionn, son of Maclean of Treshnish. He was the ninth in descent from Lachlan Fionn, of whom I was not able to find any trace until the