On the shores of Loch Etive, we find Glenoe, the lands on which generations of MacIntyres lived and died and loved and fought and farmed. If you don’t know the story yet, you can read this account of why MacIntyres no longer live there: http://raingod.com/angus/Misc/Personal/ClanMacintyre.html
Glenoe is the place Clan MacIntyre and their chiefs called home for centuries. According to all accounts, MacIntyres arrived at Glen Noe before recorded history. This place is coded in our biological, historical, and social DNA. Glenoe is often spoken about as if it is on some kind of heavenly plane that’s out of reach.
It is somehow a place of abiding mystery and longing, a mythical landscape for the diaspora, that also seems to be part of the collective subconscious of us all. We cannot always exactly say why, but this somewhat mysterious homeland continues to survive within us no matter where we are. Indeed, it has always been part of our sense of involvement with the Clan MacIntyre Trust and is unsurprisingly listed in the Memorandum of Association as a key element in our formation, our reason to be, and our longing for some sort of happily resolved future. Obviously, Glenoe continues to be a major part of the familial fabric that is common to us all.
Our best known poet, Duncan Ban, proclaimed the beauty and majesty of Glenoe and Cruachan. Can we still “sing” the same song as he did? Did he not put into verse the very same landscape that we seek to inhabit?
Glenoe is crucial to our identity as a Clan. It is the only known piece of land that ancestors inhabited; we don’t know exactly where they were on Skye. Glenoe the only physical place on which we can put our finger or our feet.
During the Gathering, Ian MacIntyre, Camus na h-Erie will lease the current homestead on Glenoe. This location will host the finale event of the Gathering on Sunday, 22 July, “MacIntyres at Glenoe” https://register.macintyregathering.com/events/macintires-at-glenoe/