MacGregor ~ Ard Choille & The MacGregor War Cry, by Andrew Pearson
With permisson from Andrew Pearson: [email protected]
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MACGREGOR
Àrd Choille!
Gaelic, translating as: high (or height of) wood.
Now rendered Ardchyle, the name of a small estate in Glen Dochart, Perthshire, this the possession - hence territorial designation - of a sixteenth century much favoured, indeed the most eligible claimant in the contest for the clan’s chiefship, Donnchadh (Duncan) nicknamed Làdasach, a word meaning lordly in the sense of grand or bold.
The imperious neighbouring Campbells had been able to impose their own choice of puppet chief on the MacGregors but defiant Duncan acted as the clan’s effective commander and his descendants would in fact become formally acknowledged in the chiefship by the late eighteenth century. Donnchadh Làdasach MacGregor of Ardchyle may be reckoned an archetype for his more renowned, remote, later kinsman, Rob Roy, each either a swashbuckling champion or a wild freebooter (dependent upon the historian’s viewpoint) both - in use of terror tactics - guerrilla leaders par excellence of the free spirits of a clan often presecuted as vermin.
In her book on the History of The Clan Gregor (1898), Amelia Georgiana Murray MacGregor includes unpublished material inherited from earlier scholars from which, relating to ‘Ardchoill’, her footnote on page 47 declares: "From the name of this property came the ‘slogan’ or war cry of the ClanGregor, although some of the families, according to a MS, by Pont, preserved in the Lyon Office, used the motto, ‘Bad Guibhas’ or ‘Clump of Firs’. On page 107 another extract from the same documentation proceeds: "In the achievement of ‘MacGregoure’ from the Lislebourg MS in the British Museum date 1589 there is no motto; a circumstance leading to the inference, that the Slogan of Ardchoill had been first used in 1544 for the obvious reason …that there had been previously no established Slogan; and that the Slogan alluding to the Clump of Firs had been substituted by those who did not chuse to adopt the other." Finally the same source on that page concludes that: "Duncan Ladosach was…styled of Ardchoille…which, from being McGregor’s seat…under Duncan’s son and heir, became its war cry".
Interpreting these tantalising but unsubstantiated snippets raises the possibility that, in addition to the nowadays accepted slogan, there may have been another resorted to by clansfolk not supporting Duncan or his descendants’ claim to the chiefship. Ultimate triumph by the ‘Làdasach’ line may explain the survival of the former slogan and the latter’s consignment to obscurity. Especially if the two were employed for propaganda purposes with - competing for clansmen’s chant - ‘Àrd Choille’ as a synonym for Duncan plus his progeny and ‘Bad Ghiuthas’ (the correct and modern Gaelic spelling) the choice of their unsuccessful opponents. MacGriogair dha’m bu shuaicheantas giuthas runs an age-old saying - ‘MacGregor whose emblem was the (native Scots) pine’, a sprig potentially in every clansman’s bonnet, worn to proclaim kinship affiliation. And, with the cry’s ‘clump’ element perhaps symbolising ‘community’, what better slogan than Bad Ghiuthas! to affirm preference for the clan as a whole against perceived takeover by ‘Làdasach’ factionalism?
The Pont ‘MS’, referred to above, still exists, the original reposing now in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh. It is incorporated in the armorial: ‘A note of the Arms of the Nobilitie of Scotland set doun in order as they ride at Parliament also the Arms of the wholle sirnames in Scotland exactly blazoned in their proper colours and done in order of the alphabit collected by James Pont Anno Dom. 1624’, where it describes a coat of arms thus: McGreigor; Argent, a sword az; and a fir tree vt crost salterwayes beneath a crown gu; with these words ‘Bad Jewis’. The latter wording is a good phonetical attempt in the Scots tongue of the Gaelic sounds.
It is usual for coats of arms to contain mottos, these being sometimes edifying precepts - this obviously not of that type - sometimes betokening something important to the clan which is accordingly considered relevant to the house whose coat of arms it is, e.g. the clan slogan. And this could well qualify for such an instance but unfortunately the description in conjunction with the arms does not indicate the wording’s significance. So - meantime anyway - ‘Bad Ghiuthas’ with the status of a slogan must be accorded the Scottish legal verdict of ‘Not Proven’, i.e. likely but lacking definitive evidence.
Another instance touted erroneously as a MacGregor slogan is ‘Gregalach’, this dealt with under the section Sayings sometimes reckoned as slogans but which are actually not, which see.
(I've attached the relevant above-noted section below.)
On page 69 of the ‘lightweight’ mid-twentieth century publication, The Scottish Tartans (a book for which not even an author is stated) the MacGregor slogan is listed as Gregalach which has subsequently been proliferated via some (it must be said, non-official) websites. This misconception almost certainly derives from a rousing rallying song, MacGregor’s Gathering published in 1816, with words by Sir Walter Scott set to a mustering melody of the clan as a compliment to his friend the then chief.
It is heady with emotion, epitomising the clan ethos of resiliance to its oppressors with sentiments such as ‘MacGregor despite them shall flourish forever!’ redolent of warcries. In similar vein, each verse has a refrain terminating in the veritable declamation of ‘Grigalach’ (now rendered ‘Gregalach’ in the modern version). The associated text makes clear however that Scott intended only to replicate the Gaelic word ‘Griogalach’ in its context as a synonym for ‘MacGregor’, not to portray it as a slogan and - as the all-time supreme saviour from oblivion of clan slogans - he assuredly would not have missed the chance to claim this as one had it been so.
(‘Griogorach’ is the more usual term for which ‘Griogalach’ is a lesser used variant. Co-incidence of it in respectively Scott’s song and chronologically thereafter The Scottish Tartans does strongly suggest the former as source of the latter.)