I would like to start off this evening by telling you how privileged I feel to share this reunion with you. And, I thank you for the privilege.

Just a couple of days ago, I visited the Clan Donald monument just north of here, in Pictou. On that monument is inscribed the words: "Remember those from whom you came". So, I thought it fitting and proper to speak tonight on those from whom we came. Too, quite surprising and curious to me, at the reunion five years ago, Wilma referred to McKeens as "bluebloods", a term I usually associate with nobility. I would also speak of nobility. Then, I will ask that you share a hope with me.

Our Celtic heritage goes back many thousands of years. So, there are many interesting places I could begin. I have chosen to begin with Somerled, the first Lord of the Isles and a man who had a profound, and very far reaching, impact on Scottish history. Seumus Mac Thomas, a respected seanachie, tells of Somerled in his book, The Royal Clans of Scotland. Though no clan bears his name, Seumus writes, there is no doubt that Somerled is the greatest founder of clans in Scotland's history. The MacDougalls, MacDonalds, MacAlisters, Alexanders, MacDonnells, MacIains, MacRanalds, and others can trace a provable link to this remarkable man. Even the Royal House of Stewart and its heirs have a link through an heiress to Somerled.

Somerled was born around 1100 and is most noted, even though he was partly Norse himself, for booting the Norsemen out of the western islands and establishing himself as the first Lord of the Isles. He was also responsible for striking the steel to spark what was to blaze into a brilliant and noble Gaelic culture and polity that burned brightly for centuries.

Now, Somerled's grandson was Donald, the patronymic for Clan Donald and Donald's grandson was lain Sprangach, or John the Bold, the patronymic for our Maclains of Ardnamurchan. lain lived around the late 1200's and, like Somerled before him, encountered the Norsemen.

Charles MacKain of Elgin, Scotland, wrote some 50 years ago of lain's arrival in Ardnamurchan. "There is a well supported Clan tradition", Charles wrote, "that, prior to the MacIains, Ardnamurchan was under the sway of a Norwegian lord of dark character who made himself so obnoxious that the inhabitants rose up against him and put him to death. They sent to Angus Mor Macdonald, Lord of the Isles, for protection against the wrath of the Norsemen. He at once sent his third son, lain Sprangach, to take possession of Ardnamurchan."

And take possession lain did. No Norsemen has set foot on the peninsula since. The Maclains eventually became the most powerful branch of Clan Donald. It was here on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula that Mingary Castle was built and still stands to this day. Sir Walter Scott describes this, our ancestral homeland, in his poem, Lord of the Isles as

  "On its own dark cape reclined, and listening to its own wild wind,
   From where Mingary sternly placed o'Erawes the woodland and the waste."

Stand, if you will, say 600 years ago, more or less, on that "dark cape reclined" and imagine seeing the Maclains clad in their quilted surcoats emblazoned amorally with the Clan motto, "In hope I byde". They embarked in their great galleys of more than 20 oarsmen in the bay below - perhaps underway for lona, that mystical, noble, hallowed island some 30 miles to the south, or to Finlaggan Island, that revered ancient council site of Clan Donald. The event is the inauguration of clansman, Macdonald, as Lord of the Isles.

A noble, beautiful ceremony with Macdonald standing on a stone marked with a footprint to signify that he should tread in the steps of his forebears, and clad in a white habit to symbolize innocence and integrity, that he should maintain the true religion and be a light to his people. The new Lord of the Isles was then invested with a white rod in his right hand to symbolize his power to rule, not with tyranny or partiality, but rather with discretion and sincerity, and was then invested with his father's sword to signify his duty to defend his people.

Yet, with all of this nobility, these were turbulent, treacherous and dangerous times and the sands of time contained many pitfalls.

If we were to stand on the peninsula in 1493, we might see the MacIains en-route again. This time for Dunstaffnage Castle to witness the forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles by Macdonald to James IV.

MacIain, now at the head of the most powerful branch of Clan Donald, was among the first to pay homage to James, and Mingary was subsequently the place where James held court to receive the homage of other clans. Around the same time, a bard wrote the poignant and foreboding words which, in English, say:

     It is no joy without Clan Donald 
     It is no strength to be without them;
     The best race in this round world
     To them belongs every goodly man.
     For sorrow and for sadness
     I have forsaken wisdom and learning,
     On their account I have forgotten all things,
     It is no joy without Clan Donald.

And, it truly was "no joy without Clan Donald". Macdonald was known as Buchaille nan Eilean, or Herdsman of the Isles. Without a herdsman, any flock is exposed to weasels, jackals and other predators. And, in truth, we see the dispossession, murder and dispersal of the Gael, not only in the Highlands and Islands, but in other areas as well- a travesty that has continued to this day.

lain Brayach Maclain, or John the Handsome, was slain at the hands of other Gaels, not far from Mingary, in 1518. He was, fittingly enough, buried in Iona. His monument there is described as a finely carved gravestone representing two warriors under a double canopy, one in plate armor and the other in long surcoat. Beneath is a galley and there is rich ornamentation in Gaelic style. An inscription in Latin reads in English, "Here lies John MacIain, Lord of Ardnamurchan, and Mariota MacIain his sister, wife of Mac Colin MacDuffie, Lord of Dunevin in Colonsay". From this point we see the Maclains gradually dispossessed, Ardnamurchan and Mingary passing from MacIain hands sometime in the first half of the 1600's. During this time, the Maclains are described by historians as pirates. I see this period as one of our noblest hours. I see a courageous people who risked terrifying consequences, against overwhelming odds, to place the collective, mailed, MacIain fist squarely, nobly and without equivocation, directly in the face of tyranny, signalling to the world, in no uncertain terms, that, if you are going to mess with the MacIains, you had better be prepared to go the distance over some pretty rocky road.

Later that same century, our own William MacKean was forced out of Argyllshire, at the point of bloody Claver's guns, to Ulster, narrowly escaping alive.

We see other Gaels cast to the four winds - scattered like embers of that once great fire sparked by Somerled, including our cousins, the MacIains of Glencoe massacred in 1692.

Yet, these embers have glowed brightly in many parts of the world. We have survived, and survived nobly. Just look around you here this weekend and see what the MacKeens have contributed to Nova Scotia and Canada, including Henry MacKeen, Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia. What about the MacIains who were scattered throughout Scotland and went to places like Elgin, Jedburgh and Mull and became prominent in those places. We became diplomats, college presidents, war heros, military officers, physicians, farmers, barristers, miners, saddle makers, architects, blacksmiths and other professions.

Thomas McKean, of Delaware, signed the Declaration of Independence, one of the noblest documents in history. Remember the MacIain whose name became anglicized along the way, Andrew Johnson, and became the 17th President of the United States.

I recently had the opportunity to purchase a stone in the Memorial Garden on the Isle of Skye. The inscription on the stone will read, simply, "William MacIain departed Argyllshire ca 1679 to flee religious oppression. His descendants now prosper in the new world".

At the last reunion here we sang the song, "I Am Maclain ". I wish that we had a song entitled "We Are Maclain" to sing here tonight together. Because it is we who are MacIain, and it is the "we" that is important.

And, yet, we are more than MacIain. We are MacDougall, Macdonald, MacAlister, Alexander, MacDonnell, MacRanald, Cameron, Stewart and those many other noble and great names anyone here may find in their personal family histories and genealogies. In keeping with our traditional family motto, "The Hope in Which I Byde" is that our great clan spirit that I spoke of, and see so well represented here tonight, will continue and will grow even more, that the embers now scattered will some day coalesce into a brilliance even greater than that Gaelic entity started by Somerled, which was so brutally and unjustly decimated. That this time we will hang together. I hope, too, that every one of you will share this hope with me.