Clan MacNeacail

Clan MacNeacail, sometimes known as Clan MacNicol, is a Scottish clan long associated with the Isle of Skye. Tradition states that, early in its history, the clan held the Isle of Lewis, as well as extensive territory on the north-western mainland. The earliest member of the clan on record is one 14th century John "mak Nakyl", who is recorded amongst Edward I of England's powerful West Highland supporters during the Wars of Scottish Independence. John Barbour's 1375 epic, The Brus, suggests that by 1316, the clan had switched allegiance to Robert I, and made a decisive intervention in the new theatre of Anglo-Scottish conflict in Ireland. The marriage of an heiress to the MacLeods of Lewis brought a severe loss of lands and power in the following generation, forcing the clan chiefs to relocate to the surviving estates on Skye. However, the MacNeacails retained local significant influence: serving, according to tradition, as members of the Council of the Lords of the Isles and as custodians of the cathedral church of the Western Isles at Snizort. In the 17th century, members of the clan began to Anglicise their surname from the Scottish Gaelic MacNeacail to various forms, such as Nicolson. Today the English variants of the Gaelic surname are borne by members of the clan as well as members of unrelated Scottish families, including the Lowland Clan Nicolson.

Early history

Origins

The heartland of the clan has been for centuries in Trotternish, on Skye. The earliest record of a MacNeacail in Trotternish occurs in 1507. Hugh MacDonald's 17th century History of the MacDonalds shows that the clan was seated on Skye even earlier, as it states that "MacNicoll in Portree" was a member of the council of the Lords of the Isles. There are several pedigrees which document the earliest line of the clan. One such pedigree is contained within the 15th century MS 1467, and probably drawn up at the beginning of the fifteenth century. This pedigree concerns a certain John, son of Ewen, who is presented as the son of John, the son of Nicol. A previous 25 generations are set down, including one earlier Nicol, who - on a generational calculation - would have flourished in the later 12th century. This rollcall renders the pedigree one of the most substantial in the MS., and identifies the clan among the important followers of the Lords of the Isles - the document serving to detail those kindreds who upheld their authority. Although the credibility of the earlier parts of the pedigree is highly uncertain, the list mixes together Gaelic and Scandinavian names, and claims to take the male line of the MacNicols back to the Early Medieval Norse princes of Dublin. During the High Middle Ages, Skye formed a part of the Norse-Gaelic Kingdom of the Isles, before being incorporated into the Kingdom of Scotland through the Treaty of Perth in 1266. The MacNeacails were also one of the families whom the Irish genealogist John O'Hart purported to trace back to Adam and Eve via the early kings of Ireland. According to this genealogy, some of the ancestors of Clan MacNicol include Breoghan, the Celtic king of Spain; and Lugaid Mac Con, High King of Ireland. It is likely that the competing Norwegian and Celtic narratives of the clan's origins refer to two separate lines intertwined in a Norse-Gaelic marriage.

Earliest MacNeacail

The first MacNeacail on record is likely a 14th-century John "mak Nakyl" or "Macnakild". This man may well be the 'John son of Nicol' who appears in the MS 1467. John is recorded in three English documents which associate him with the leading West Highland supporters of Edward I of England during the Scottish Wars of Independence. One document records that, in 1306 letters were delivered from Edward to his supporters, William I, Earl of Ross, Lachlan MacRuairi, his brother Ruairi, and John "mak Nakyl". In 1314 and 1315, Edward II of England, ordered his principle West Highland supporter John MacDougall of Argyll to receive Donald de Insula, his brother Godfrey, Sir Patrick Graham, and John "Macnakild" into the king's peace. The three records suggest that John was a prominent West Highland or Hebridean leader, much like the other men the records associate him with. It is also possible that John may be identical to the unnamed MacNicol who appears in John Barbour's late 14th century poem The Brus. The part of the poem which mentions this MacNicol recounts how he took part in Edward Bruce's siege of Carrickfergus Castle in 1316. As the poem associated this MacNicol with ships, it may be further evidence that John was a leading Hebridean.

Tradition

By the early sixteenth century, the MacNeacails are on documentary record as a small, though locally-influential clan, concentrated in Trotternish on Skye. However, long-standing Gaelic tradition, backed up by the evidence of place names and the MS. 1467, suggests that their power had once been much greater - extending through the thirteenth century over a great part of the northern Hebrides and the north-western mainland. William Matheson has posited the MacNicols as ‘the leading family in the Outer Hebrides towards the end of the Norse period’. The central feature of this tradition is the claim that the MacNeacails once had possession of Lewis before losing their lands to the MacLeods through the marriage of an heiress. The MacNicols are believed to have held 'Castle Sween' at Stornoway for three centuries before the MacLeods, and to have consolidated their power with the construction of Caisteal Mhic Creacail, at Point, on the same island. The garbled Bannatyne Manuscript indicates that the MacNeacails held Lewis from the Kings of Mann, and that the clan's possession of the island terminated though the marriage of an heiress to a MacLeod. The manuscript also states that a branch of the MacNeacails held Waternish on Skye before the MacLeods. The purported match of Margaret MacNicol to Murdoch, son of Leod, would have happened some time shortly before 1343, when the MacLeods of Lewis were confirmed in their landholdings by virtue of a royal grant. The memory of the marriage was surrounded for several centuries by dark rumours. In the 17th century, John Morison of Bragar wrote of "... Macknaicle whose onlie daughter Torquill the first of that name did violentlie espouse, and cutt off Immediatlie the whole race of Macknaicle and possessed himself with the whole Lews...". Other traditions associate the MacNeacails with the mainland in Assynt and Coigach; the ruins of Caisteal Mhic Neacail near Ullapool may well corroborate these links. Producing a description of Assynt to accompany the Statistical Account of 1794, Rev William Mackenzie drew upon a local tradition that the district had been granted by the Thane of Sutherland to one 'MacKrycul', in recognition of his service against Viking cattle-raiders. The local belief that MacKrycul was the 'potent man' from whom the MacNicols descended is seemingly backed up by the MS. 1467, in which the first of the two Nicails - living approximately in the later twelfth century - is listed as the son of 'Gregall'. By the middle of the fourteenth century, this district was also under the control of the MacLeods.
The History of the MacDonalds may well refer to a member of the clan, when it states that a "MacNicoll" was killed on North Uist in a rebellion against Olaf the Red. Olaf ruled the Kingdom of the Isles until his death in 1153. Since the reference to MacNicoll appears after an account of Godfrey Donn, during an episode which took place in about 1223, the story of MacNicoll's death may actually refer to Olaf the Black, rather than his grandfather Olaf the Red. If the earlier Nicol in the MS. 1467 can be considered the name-father of the clan, the slaughtered chieftain could tentatively be identified as his son Neaill. If it was indeed the case that the MacNicols of Coigach were granted Assynt and surrounding territories for action against Norse raiders, these two events together indicate the slow loosening of the clan's Scandinavian allegiances, as the kings of Scotland began to exert their claims over the Western Isles. Another tradition which may refer to the MacNeacails concerns the coat of arms of the MacLeods of Lewis. In the 17th century, the Earl of Cromartie recounted the traditional explanation of the arms: that the Kings of Norway had the MacLeods man two beacons, one on Lewis and one on Skye, to guide the king's ships safely through the islands. Since the MacLeods appear to have gained Lewis long after the Hebrides was incorporated into the Kingdom of Scotland, the tradition may well refer instead to the MacNeacails. If this is the case, then the MacLeods of Lewis not only inherited their lands from the MacNeacails, but also aspects of their heraldry.
Put together, these stray accounts and traditions bolster the impression of the MacNicols as a significant political and territorial force in the Medieval north-west, who experienced a traumatic loss of status in the fourteenth century that disrupted the balance of power across the region. This interpretation is supported, as David Sellar has shown, by two details in the early history of the MacLeods of Lewis. A MacLeod pedigree, now in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy, appropriates the MacNicol family tree of 1467, running without a break into the familiar rollcall of early Medieval names. Secondly, the royal grant of Assynt to the MacLeods of Lewis in 1343 included the pointed stipulation that inheritance would pass down the line of heirs male. As Sellar puts it, 'the MacLeods had no intention of seeing their newly gained lands leave the clan through an heiress!' The MS. 1467 can credibly be considered in the light of these events, in view of the surprising omission of the MacLeods from a document conceived to demonstrate the power of the Lords of the Isles and their allied families. With the MacNicols serving as councillors under the lordship, Ronald Black has suggested that the MS. 1467 aimed to assert their continuing claims over lost territories: placing John, the chief of the family, in lineal descent from the royal Norse line and the earlier possessors of Lewis. If this interpretation is followed, John's father, Ewen MacNicol, could speculatively be positioned as a brother of the heiress - either illegitimate or too young to prevent the forcible transfer of his ancestral territories into other hands.