[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hartand may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.][Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any salesof Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware orsoftware or any other related product without express permission.]
[This book was digitized by William James Mackenzie, III, ofMontgomery County, Maryland, USA in 1999 - 2000. I wouldappreciate notice of any corrections needed. This is the edited versionthat should have most of the typos fixed. May 2003. wjm10@juno.com]
The book author writes about himself in the SLIOCHD ALASTAIR CHAIMsection.
I have tried to keep everything intact. I have made some smallchanges to apparent typographical errors. I have left out theoccasional accent that is used on some Scottish names. Forinstance, "Mor" has an accent over the "o." A capital L preceding anumber, denotes the British monetary pound sign.
[Footnotes are in square brackets, book titles and italized words inquotes.]
Edited and reformatted by Brett Fishburne william.fishburne@verizon.net
INVERNESS: A. & W. MACKENZIE. MDCCCXCIV.
-:0:-
THE ORIGINAL EDITION of this work appeared in 1879, fifteen yearsago. It was well received by the press, by the clan, and by allinterested in the history of the Highlands. The best proof ofthis is the fact that the book has for several years been out ofprint, occasional second-hand copies of it coming into the marketselling at a high premium on the original subscription price.
Personally, however, I was never satisfied with it. It was myfirst clan history, and to say nothing of inevitable defects ofstyle by a comparatively inexperienced hand, it was for severalother reasons necessarily incomplete, and in many respects notwhat I should wish the history of my own clan to be.
This edition, which extends to close upon two hundred pages morethan its predecessor, has an accurate and well-executed plate ofthe clan tartan, and a life-like portrait of the Author; has beenalmost entirely re-written; contains several families omitted fromthe first; has all been carefully revised; and although not evennow absolutely perfect, I believe it is almost as near being soas it is possible for any work which contains such an enormousnumber of dates and other details as this one to be.
The mythical Fitzgerald origin of the clan, hitherto accepted bymost of its leading members, is exhaustively dealt with, I ventureto hope effectively, if not completely and finally disposed of.That it is now established beyond any reasonable dispute to havebeen a pure invention of the seventeenth century may, I think, besafely asserted, while it is, with al