FROM THE ARCHIVES: Secrets revealed about Fionn Mac Colla, mythical man of Highland mystery from The Black Isle
Fionn Mac Colla might conjure up images of Celtic mythology, clan warfare, the Gàidhealtachd; maybe the intention of Thomas Douglas Macdonald when he adopted it as his pen name, writes an archivist from High Life Highland.
One of Scotland’s eminent writers of the 20th century, Mac Colla held strong political views and a deeply rooted passion for Gaelic, the roots of which can be found in his family’s background in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire.
Born in Montrose, it is with his father, Donald Macdonald, where we find Mac Colla’s Highland heritage. In the Farraline Park school admission register Donald appears residing at Lotland Place in Inverness. Fionn Mac Colla had been named after his paternal grandfather and looking at the Inverness valuation rolls for 1885, a mason named Thomas Macdonald was tenant and occupier at 8 Lotland Place.
Census records can provide a wealth of information and it is from these we see Mac Colla’s grandfather, Thomas Macdonald, was born in Killearnan on the Black Isle around 1840.
Thomas was brought up in the locality of Tore, his father a farmer of seven acres was named Donald Macdonald. This is why family history can very easily become complicated – Scottish naming patterns mean children were often named after their grandparents.
Donald Macdonald, Fionn Mac Colla’s great-grandfather, was born around 1798 in the Parish of Urray and appears in the Killearnan Register of the Poor in 1879. It is from this document we can see his birthplace is Faebait, on the Aultgowrie road, heading west from Glen Ord Distillery.
This is where Donald resided when he married Fionn’s great-grandmother Elizabeth Macdonald, who lived nearby in Aultvaich.
The Clearances feature prominently in Mac Colla’s second novel And the Cock Crew. Donald and Elizabeth (or Betty) Macdonald suffered the consequences of clearance when they were removed from Urray to the Black Isle between 1833 and 1841.
Throughout Fionn Mac Colla’s life he spoke vehemently of the hardships faced by the Gael, the importance of acknowledging it, and resurrecting the heritage before it is lost. This was not necessarily from lived experience, albeit he did speak Gaelic, but from his ancestry though he did spend much of the latter part of his life among the Gaelic communities of the Hebrides.
In the 1958-59 County of Inverness Valuation Rolls Thomas D. Macdonald is listed as occupier of the Teacher’s House in Northbay, Barra. He spent 20 years in the Western Isles while headmaster in Benbecula and Barra.
From Mac Colla’s writing we gain an understanding of the importance of heritage to his identity; some of which is documented in records in the archive centre.
The Highland Archive Centre is open on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. To book or to enquire about remote archive or family history research please contact us at archives@highlifehighland.com, tel: 01349 781130 or see our website at https://www.highlifehighland.com/archives-service/covid-19-archive-updates/
