Clan MacColl

Tradition has it that the MacColls have been associated with the area round Loch Fyne from an early date and are claimed to be a branch of the great Clan Donald. This is due to the frequent use of the name Coll as a personal name for those of that clan. The MacColls are also connected to other clans including the MacGregors and the Stewarts of Appin. Due to their support of the MacGregors they found themselves opposing the MacPhersons who they met at Drum Nachder in 1602 returning from a raid into Ross. The two sides fought and the MacColls lost most of their men including their leader. The MacColls who lived in Appin and Ballachulish followed the Stewarts of Appin and in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion eighteen MacColls were killed and fifteen wounded in the Appin Regiment. The MacColls most famous exponent was Evan McColl the Gaelic poet who was born at Kenmore on Loch Fyne in 1808. He was the author of the "The Mountain Minstrel" or in Gaelic "Clarsach nam Beann". He died at the end of the century and a monument was erected at Kenmore in his memory, which was unveiled in 1930 by His Grace the Duke of Argyll.

CREST: A gray demi cata-mountain, salient, on his sinister foreleg a Highland targe, gules.