The blood is strong

In the days when the sea and the lochs were the highways, long Loch Fyne in Argyll was of great strategic importance. It gave the powerful Campbells a route to Dumbarton and the Lowlands and the royal seats of power, an influential link denied to the clans of Lochaber and the central Highlands.

Along its shores lived smaller clans, sometimes clinging to their independence, such as the MacLachlans in Strath Lachlan (pronounced Lochlin), who managed to send men to join the Jacobites although surrounded by Hanoverian sympathisers, or the Lamonts who once owned extensive lands and who came under Campbell overlordship and paid dearly when they occasionally joined Clan Campbell’s enemies, or the MacNeills who controlled the island of Gigha and parts of Kintyre. Here, too, on Loch Fyne, lived the Clan Ewen.

On the east shore of the loch and to the south of Strath Lachlan, lies a prominent spit of land which sticks out to the west and points towards Asknish on the opposite shore and where that part of the old Campbell territory starts to merge with north Knapdale.

This point of land is marked on the modern maps as Otter Ferry and a ferry did run across Loch Fyne at one time, to Port Ann, south of Loch Gair.

This is the land of the MacEwans, of the Clan Ewen, who centuries ago had territory here. A modern memorial cairn remains the only tangible evidence of their presence.

There are problems in deciding whether a person has an allegiance to Clan Ewen because it does not necessarily follow that every person called Ewen, Ewing, MacEwen, MacOwan, McKean or similar names has an ancient pedigree link with that clan.

It all depends on whether people can trace their family line back to the original Ewens of Otter or to any of the other Ewen communities which later sprang up in different parts of the Highlands and Lowlands and whether they feel sib to the character of Clan Ewen.

Surnames as we know them nowadays were not used in the same way in the past and there is the additional difficulty in ancestry research of 18th and 19th century English or Scots speaking clerks setting down Gaelic names in phonetic English.

People in the past were notoriously careless with spelling and it was not unknown for people to spell their own names in different ways. My own name, McOwan, was once spelled McEwan and although we pronounce it Mac-oan, other call it Makcow-an.

There was always a tradition in the Highlands of people occasionally switching their clan allegiance.

The motto of Clan Ewan is ‘Reviresco’ which has been translated as ‘green growth’ in the sense of being ever fresh and alive.

The Lord Lyon, King of Arms, the custodian of Scotland’s ancient Lyon Court on heraldic matters, says: “It is perhaps strange that an oak tree was chosen when the name MacEwen derives from the Gaelic MacEoghain, a Gaelic personal name meaning ‘born of the yew-tree’. One might have expected a yew stump rather than an oak.

Oak was widely used in boat building and this tree had sacred properties and was burned during festivals such as Beltane, the Celtic new year, and this might have led to the Clan Ewen’s choice.

It has also been argued that the name Ewen can mean ‘well born’ or ‘young warrior’, and its origin is a matter of complex debate.

To understand the history of Clan Ewen we have to go back to how our nation of Scotland was shaped.

The Romans called the tribal races in what is now Scotland the Picti or painted people because of their tattoo-like war decorations on their body. They also called them the Caledonians, a name which may derive from Celtic words for a wooded stronghold.

These ancient peoples in their small kingdoms have left us a legacy of standing stones, hillfoots, intricately carved inscriptions and designs and jewellery, and traces of a ‘language’.

Their native pagan and naturist religions were gradually absorbed by Christianity which was originally brought by missionaries from what is now Ireland.

More and more settlers from Ireland lived on the west coast of Scotland and carved out an enclave for themselves called Dalriada and Dalriata, an area which covered much of modern Argyll. These incomers fought and inter-married with the native Picts in Alba and eventually gave their name, the Scotti, to our nation of Scotland.

The country reached its first, formal unity under King Kenneth MacAlpin in the 9th century.

The MacEwans (Clan Ewen) claim their descent from leaders of the Scotti from Ireland.

It is not easy to chronicle Clan Ewen because they were a broken clan by the middle of the 15th century, there are few records and they have only one – and not prominent – fortified ruin at Otter.

It is known that the ancient Clan Ewen or MacEwen of Otter, in Gaelic Eoghan na h Oitrich, was one of the earliest of the western clans which grew out of the Dalriada Scots.

Changing fortunes

The MacEwens – says historian and barrister R.S.T. MacEwen – controlled clan territory which at one time measured 25 square miles and at their peak could probably bring over 200 fighting men.

They suffered in the old disputes between Scottish monarchs who desired national control and the powerful Lordship of the Isles and when King Alexander II stamped his central authority on Argyll in 1222 the MacEwens suffered severely through being truculent. The MacNeills got off because they, rightly or wrongly, consented to hold their lands from the Crown.

The MacLachlans also prospered because they had the good sense to marry an heiress of the Lamonts and this increased their power.

But the MacEwens survived. A remnant clung on under their own chief at Otter until their last recorded chief died two and half centuries later.

Not a lot is known about them, but some names are recorded. MacEwen I of Otter, the earliest chief of whom anything is known, lived around 1200. He was succeeded by Severan II of Otter who may have been chief around 1222. The names of the third and fourth chief are lost.

Gillespie V of Otter became chief about 1315 and one wonders if MacEwens fought at Bannockburn in 1314. Another four chiefs are recorded, Ewen VI, John VII, Walter VIII and Sufnee or Sene, the IX and the last of the Otter chiefs.

The “Old Statistical Account of the Parish of Kilfinnan” records in 1750 that on a rocky point on Loch Fyne there stood in 1700 the ruins of Castle MacEwan (Caisteal MhicEoghain), the stronghold of the earlier lords of Otter.

Skene also describes their MacEwen as chief of the clan and ‘proprietor’ of the northern division of the parish of Otter. A manuscript of 1450, which contains the genealogy of Clann Eoghain na h Oitrich, confirms the clan is derived from Anradan.

By the 15th century things are becoming clearer.

In 1431-32 the ninth chief of Otter, Swene MacEwen (MacCewn), granted a charter of part of the lands of Otter to Duncan, son of Alexander Campbell, a sign that the expansionist Campbells were beginning to exert a pattern of overlordship over their smaller neighbours.

The hand of Scottish kings also played a part in the changing fortunes of Clan Ewen because in 1432 Swene MacCewn resigned the barony of Otter to King James I of Scotland, but received it anew from the King “with remainder” to Celestine Campbell, son and heir of the powerful Duncan Campbell of Lochow (Loch Awe).

Clan Ewen may have opposed King Robert the Bruce in the Scottish Wars of Independence.

The Campbells, who supported the victorious Bruce, grew in their power as a consequence and used their links with the royal line of Scotland to absorb the Clan Ewen lands. By the middle of the 15th century the MacEwens had lost their autonomy, but they had not lost their identity.

Some of the MacEwans joined the Campbells and other western clans. Others made their way to the central Highlands, to Lochaber, and also the islands, including Skye.

Some moved to the fringes of the central Lowlands and settled in Lennox. Others travelled far south and made a new home in Galloway, that southern area which is like the Highlands in miniature. Individual MacEwens crop up all over Scotland.

There was a tradition among the MacEwens of producing bards and poets and sennachies, men of learning and musical skills, who were nurtured in ancient schools of oral learning.

They attached themselves to the Campbell house of Argyll and to the growing Campbell house of Breadalbane and also to the MacDougalls of Dunoillie Castle, near Oban.

The MacEwans who settled in the Lennox country owed allegiance to the Stewart earls and were given grants of land. Between 1625 and 1680 four charters from the dukes of Lennox and Richmond name ‘heirs’ called ‘MacKewin’ and ‘McEwin’.

Other sources give earlier dates for the Lennox MacEwens and say they fought for Mary Queen of Scots and took part in the battle of Langside in 1568 when the Queen’s forces were defeated by the Regent Moray.

They had their own banner which has long since crumbled and vanished.

Local tradition says they had a reputation for strength and a MacEwen clansman was reputed to have carried a stone coffin under one arm and the lid under another from townships at the side of Loch Lomond to the old churchyard at Luss.