Siol Gillevray

Under the head of the Siol or clan Gillevray, Mr Skene gives other three clans said by the genealogists to have been descended from the family of Somerled, and included by Mr Skene under the Gallgael. The three clans are those of the Macneills, the Maclauchlans, and the Macewens. According to the MS. of 1450, the Siol Gillevray are descended from a certain Gillebride, surnamed King of the Isles, who lived in the 12th century, and who derived his descent from a brother of Suibne, the ancestor of the Macdonalds, who was slain in the year 1034. Even Mr Skene, however, doubts the genealogy by which this Gillebride is derived from an ancestor of the Macdonalds in the beginning of the 11th century, but nevertheless, the traditionary affinity which is thus shown to have existed between these clans and the race of Somerled at so early a period, he thinks seems to countenance the notion that they had all originally sprung from the same stock. The original seat of this race appears to have been in Lochaber. On the conquest of Argyle by Alexander II., they were involved in the ruin which overtook all the adherents of Somerled; with the exception of the Macneills, who consented to hold their lands of the crown, and the Maclauchlans, who regained their former consequence by means of marriage with an heiress of the Lamonds. After the breaking up of the clan, the other branches appear to have followed, as their chief, Macdougall Campbell of Craignish, the head of a family, which is descended from the kindred race of MacInnes of Ardgour.