PANALBA

The Sons of Diarmaid

Dave McNicoll 01/30/2010 08:27 AM

Today you'd zip past it, completely unaware that it even exists; and such is the way of the fingerprints of time. Under the shadow of high Ben More by the village of Crianlarich are the tumbledown remnants of Loch Dochart Castle: once an integral link in a series of defences known as the ‘Ring of Argyll'. Glen Dochart, leading down to dark Loch Tay for centuries lay at the heart of the mighty Campbell empire of Breadalbane, and Loch Dochart Castle, built by Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy in 1590, protected one of the key overland approaches to the ancient homeland of this mightiest of all Highland clans - Argyll.

The county of Argyll, one of Scotland's largest, is a myriad of mountain, glen, cove and island, stretching from Islay to Moidart and including the peninsula of Kintyre, the Isle of Mull and the stunning valley of Glencoe; and for the last 700 years has been the fiefdom of the Campbells. When the wheel of fortune stopped spinning this expedient tribe, and its chieftains, always seemed to be at the right place at the right time, amassing along the way huge territorial power, vast wealth and gravity of power unparalleled in the kingdom. This mercurial success and meteoric rise of course gave rise to much envy and hatred, and no family in Scotland is so vilified as that of the Campbells. As they made their dynastic omelette the Campbells certainly broke a few eggs on the way, but you cannot argue the fact that they were simply light years ahead of their clan rivals in understanding how power was exercised and how to manipulate the system for their own benefit: something that their age-old rivals, like the MacDonalds, seemed simply inherently unable to grasp.

The age of the clans has of course been romanticised beyond recognition, with little of the past truly understood, and like all pantomimes you need good guys and bad guys, and the Campbells are the bad guys. We're all supposed to feel sorry for the poor MacGregor cattle thieves or the vainglorious MacDonalds (forgetting their own lofty ambitions); or shed a tear into our dram as we consider the fate of the ruinous MacNabs or the fool-hardy Stewarts: all, in their own way swept aside by the ‘evil' ambitions of this English-loving, English-speaking and southern-thinking family. The politics of envy are indeed very powerful. At the very height of their power the mighty Campbell lords such as the Duke of Argyll or the Earl of Breadalbane certainly wielded arbitrary rule in their huge estates and beyond (by 1900 the Campbell estates stretched to nearly a million acres), and often that power was unfair and corrupt; a natural consequence of such power. Events like the Glencoe massacre of 1692, which was government and not Campbell driven, have entered folklore and become so remote in time that to hate or disparage the Campbells has become the norm - in a way it has evolved into a conspiracy of sorts. Yet, it could have happened to any one of a number of families living in Argyll 1000 years ago. The roots of the Clann Caimbeul, the children of the ‘twisted mouth' are no less Gaelic than their neighbours, no less obscure, and their future no more obvious: but as always, fortune favours the fortunate.

Nearly two thousand years ago the Gaelic world of Ireland and the Highlands were protected by a band of mercenaries known as the Fianna; a sort of Celtic Jedi knights. The stories of this band of warriors are brought down to us by way of various Irish sagas like the Fenian and Ulster Cycles. They are a mixture of probably 80% pure fiction and 20% fact, but as a folk memory the strong parts of the story may have a resonance in actual events. The Fianna in my opinion actually existed, but more like warrior brigands for hire than the romantic, quasi-Homeric stories of the Cycles.

The leader of the Fianna in its heyday was Fionn MacCumhaill (in English - Finn MacCool, and in Scotland known as Fingal). Fionn wasn't the strongest, the quickest or the most accurate shot of the warriors he led, but he was the smartest, and shrewdest (a gift bestowed upon him by the gods once he ate the Salmon of Knowledge). Having accidentally killed his first wife (she'd been transformed into deer, and the shrewd, but no less stupid Fionn killed her) he had remarried the radiant and stunning beautiful Grania. The unforeseen problem for Fionn, however, was his ‘snake-in-the-grass' nephew, Diarmaid O'Duibhne (pronounced Derr-mid o doon-yi). Diarmaid, one of the greatest of the Fenian Warriors, was irresistible to women, and Grania fell in love with him. They eloped from Ireland to Scotland, and into the depths of the wild Forest of Caledonia. Yet, even here they were not safe and Fionn caught up with them. As a warrior he challenged his adversary to prove himself fit of the wrong he'd committed - he had to catch and kill the infamous and dangerous Wild Boar of Caledonia, which lurked deep in the forested mountains of Breadalbane. The boar was killed, but the wounds sustained by Diarmaid meant that he too died - honour was satisfied for Fionn and his nephew was burnt on a traditional pyre.

As Diarmaid was a ladies-man, he had lots of children - and in Gaelic the word for son is ‘Mac'; a common prefix to many Highland names. Thus, his children and their children after them were known as MacDiarmaid: the sons of Diarmaid. According to tradition, one MacDiarmaid Chief had a twisted mouth, and became nick-named Caimbeul, a name that stuck. The Campbell lords of Breadalbane would retain a boar's head in their crest.

The first recorded Campbell was Gilleasbaig (Archiebald) who lived around 1260, but it was his son that really kick-started the revolution. Colin Campbell of Lochawe supported Robert the Bruce in Argyll and as a reward was given lands along the loch, in Argyll and in Glenorchy following the wars of Independence. This powerful warlord was known as Cailean Mòr or Great Colin, and his descendants honour this in their title. By clever marriage and by the wielding of the sword the Sons of Great Colin would soon stretch their influence across Argyll and through most of Western Perthshire; and by the 1650s had become kingmakers. The Campbells have always stuck to the family game-plan of never supporting a lost cause, which seems to have been the hobby of nearly every other clan, and during the Jacobite rebellions they resolutely supported William of Orange and his Hanoverian successors. Indeed, Red John of the Battles (the Duke of Argyll), the right hand man of the Duke of Marlborough in the continental wars was instrumental in stopping the 1715 rising in its tracks. Their resolute support of the inevitable Government victory in the '45 rising saw vast wealth flow their way, as they became virtually the only clan in the Highlands that London could trust.

Even so, that didn't prevent them losing their traditional powers as chiefs along with all the rest - so instead they turned their attention to manipulating and making money from Westminster, the City of London and the mercantile world of the British Empire; and as had become traditional it took the Murrays of Atholl, the Gordons of Huntly, the Camerons of Lochiel and other major clan chiefs at least a generation to catch up with a reality that the Campbells seemed to understand instinctively. As with other Landlords the Campbells weren't shy in evicting their people during the Clearances, but as Argyll is more productive than most parts of the Highlands the effects there weren't as severe. Not so in mountainous Breadalbane.

The Marquis of Breadalbane, second only to the Duke of Argyll in Campbell power, ruled a vast estate stretching from Loch Etive on the Atlantic shore to Aberfeldy in the heart of Perthshire, and covering nearly 500,000 acres. During the 19th Century no one family was more brutal or more effective in clearing the population from their lands than the Breadalbanes, not even the Sutherlands. By Queen Victoria's visit in the 1840s they had become the richest family in Britain, and holders of the largest feudal, inherited estate in the United Kingdom. Yet, by 1930 it was all gone - the Breadalbane estate crumbled under miss-management and a singular inability to produce an heir that wasn't a distant cousin. The First World War brought many other great estates to their knees and alarm bells were ringing - was the day of the Campbell and their thousand year rule coming to an end?

Tradition has it that when the Son of Great Colin, MacCailean Mòr, Chief of all Clan Campbell is close to death his ancestors send for him by way of a ghostly galleon that sails silently up Loch Fyne to Inveraray and takes him back to the ethereal council of his clan. Throughout the 20th century the Campbell Chiefs, the Dukes of Argyll have watch as the ghosts of other chiefs and estates have consumed them, and yet they have steered a path of resilience, and in keeping with their tradition of political expedience.

Today Torquil Campbell, 13th Duke of Argyll, Chief of Clan Campbell, MacCailean Mòr and Admiral of the Western Ocean sits at the head of one of the biggest families on earth, and upon a vast fortune and influence inherited from his forefathers. And, as he reflects on his situation and what his expedient ancestors have given him, he may with a wry smile, look over his estate, his position, and that of those who would berate his name, and wonder ironically - ‘where did it all go right?'