Isle of Moy (5 of 5)
The stony island in the foreground, which is called Eilean nan Clach (which is Gaelic for stony island), is a nice example of a crannog - an artificial (stony) island.   It was used as a temporary prison and place of execution by the clan chiefs before the abolition of heritable jurisdictions (a regrettable piece of legislation in my view!).  A gallows still stood here &quot;within the memory of old people living in 1845&quot;.

I'm not going through the history of the entire run of 31 chieftains of Clan Mackintosh, but I will pick out some edited highlights!

The seanachies of the Clan Mackintosh claim that the first chief of the clan was Shaw, second son of Duncan MacDuff, Earl of Fife, of the royal house of Dál Riata.  That is regarded these days - as a load of old cobblers!  The earliest named chief of the clan was Shaw or Sheagh Mac-in-toisich.  Mac-in-toisich means son of the leader or chief, but who that chief was, nobody actually knows.

Ferquhard Mackintosh, 5th chief, led his clansmen against the Norse at the Battle of Largs, and his son Angus became chief of Clan Chattan (as well as Mackintosh), by marrying (in 1291) Eva, daughter of Dougall, 6th of Clan Chattan.

By the 15th century, the Clan Mackintosh were involved in a feud with the Camerons, involving intermittent warfare, that persisted for 350 years!  They also fought for Mary Queen of Scots against the Gordons at Corrichie (where they won) and then fought against the Gordons (and others), this time under the Earl of Argyll, at Glenlivet (where they lost).

In 1528, Clan Mackintosh and the wider Clan Chattan, incurred a letter of 'Fire and Sword', issued by King James V, who assigned it to the Earl of Moray.  The Letter required &quot;utter extermination and destruction&quot; of the clan and its supporters &quot;leaving none alive except priests, women and children&quot;, who were to be transported across the sea to the low countries.  This was to punish the clan for the disorder caused in Badenoch following Hector Mackintosh, the chief’s illegitimate brother starting a quarrel with the Earl over who would raise the dead chief's infant son.  The Earl captured 300 clan males and started to hang them one by one in order to find out where Hector was. Hector subsequently gave himself up and pledged an oath of fealty to the King.

The clan supported the Jacobites in 1715, following which, many clansmen were transported to the Americas.

In the '45, Angus Mackintosh, 22nd of Mackintosh, was a Captain in the Black Watch, however his wife supported Prince Charles Edward.  In February 1746, the Prince spent the night at Moy Hall.  To prevent the government troops from Inverness descending on the estate in surprise during the night, Lady MacKintosh sent her own men to watch the road from Inverness.  Sure enough, during the night, several hundred Hanoverian troops were observed marching down the road.  The Mackintosh defenders started beating their swords on rocks, jumping from place to place and shouting the war cries of the different clans in the Chattan Confederation.  Thinking that they had been ambushed by a large force, the government troops beat a hasty retreat, leaving Inverness open for the Prince to capture the next day, an event known as the Rout of Moy.

The current chief of Clan Mackintosh is John Lachlan Mackintosh of Mackintosh.  He claims (and I quote) &quot;to have succeeded as Chief in 1995 and currently resides in Singapore however his claim is currently disputed.&quot;  Why his claim is disputed, I would be interested to know.   'The Mackintosh' is a teacher in the Humanities Faculty at Nanyang Girls' High School and married a Language Arts teacher, Miss Vanessa Heng, in March 2014.
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