Maurice Of Clunes MacRath MacRae

"Maurice Macrath – On Arrival in Scotland

The earliest references to Clan MacRae take us to Maurice Macrath (abt 1280 – abt 1350) on the lands of Lord Lovat of Clunes. Maurice Macrath and two other men, Colin Fitzgerald and Gileoin na Tuaigh, arrived in Scotland4 from Ireland following a quarrel that came about after too much celebration during a wedding feast. When they arrived in Lovat country in Clunes, southeast of Kintail, they came upon an assassin about to attack Bissett, Lord of Lovat. The two other men refused to intervene because they had just fled from trouble caused by becoming involved in an argument. Maurice, however, killed the would-be assassin, and a grateful Bissett invited Maurice to settle on his estates in Lovat.

The Bissetts lost control of Lovat sometime between 1305 and 1333. Having no male heirs, the Lordship of Lovat passed to the Frasers when Mary Bissett married a Fraser. The Macrath family remained at Lovat for several generations, and at least three generations of Fraser children were raised in a Macrath home, a common practice of the period. The Macraths and Frasers maintained such a close warm relationship through the generations that the Frasers inscribed the following over the door at Beaufort Castle in Beauly:

‘Fhad ‘sa bhitheas Frisealach a stigh, na biheadh Macrath a muigh’

(As long as a Fraser lives within, let not a Macrath remain without.)

Maurice Macrath became chief forester for the Lovats and he had several sons; John, Christopher, Duncan, and Finlay. Since there is no reference of his sons coming with him from Ireland, it is likely that all of the sons were born in Clunes. As chief forester, it was Maurice’s responsibility to assign starting positions in the forest to the hunters when great hunts were held. On one such occasion, the illegitimate son of the Earl of Lovat objected to his assigned position, and became abusive to Maurice. One of Maurice’s sons, John (Ian Charrich of Clunes), came to his father’s defense. Words led to blows, and finally to the death of Lovat’s son at John’s hands.

The clan appears to have inhabited the lands of Clunes in the Beauly district in the 12th and 13th centuries, and removed to Kintail in the 14th century. The founder of the Kintail branch is said to be Fionnla Dubh MacGillechriosd (Finlay Macrae) who died in 1416. Duncan, 5th of Kintail, whose arrow caused the death of Donald Gorm of Sleat at Eilean Donan in 1539, was granted the lands of Inverinate about 1557, and these remained in the family for over 200 years. In 1677 Alexander, eldest son of Rev. John Macrae of Dingwall, received a wadset of the lands of Conchra and Ardachy, and became the progenitor of the Macraes of Conchra." - [from the "Clan Macrae a Most Brief History"]