McEachern Genealogy

In order to answer the question 'What is a McEachern', I have tried to summarize the major web based resources referencing this name. Some of these address variants and misspellings of the name, others describe historical artifacts such as the McEachern Cross at Kilkerran in the Kintyre. All are of interest to students of this family name.

"Maceachan, Maceachain, Maceachen, Maceachin, Macachin, Macechan, Macceachan. G. MacEachainn ‘son of Eachan.’ The Maceachans of the present day are said to be Macdonalds, but many of them in Arisaig and Uist so long used their patronymic as their surname that the practice has become settled. The late Allan R. Macdonald of Waternish says it is very doubtful in the MacEachens are really Macdonalds, and that there is good reason to believe that they are really Macleans (The Truth about Flora Macdonald, p.14n). Gillecrist Mecachin witnessed a charter by Roger de Scallebroc of lands in Carric in the reign of William the Lion (Melros, I, p. 26)... Andrew M’Cachin was rector of Ardmuchy, 1506 (ER., xii, p. 709), and Archibald McCachin was a tenant in Colonsay in same year (ibid.)....John M’Gauchane was burgess of Edinburgh, 1540... and William Reoch M’Aychin gave his bond of manrent to the earl of Huntlie, 1543 (SVM, IV, p. 260)....Many Maceachans emigrated to Nova Scotia and to Prince Edward Island and their descendants are now numerous there...." [The name appears as] McAchine 1635, Makcachane 1605, McEchan 1718, M’Eachine 1705, MacIkin (in Polloundowie) 1662, M’Kiachan 1724. Also Englished Auchaneson. See also MACGEACHAN

"Maceachern, Macreachearn, Macechern, Maceachran. G. MacEach-thigh-earna, ‘son of the horse-lord.’ The name goes back to OIr. when it appears as Ech-tigern. On the shaft of the cross at Kilkerran near Campbeltown, Kintyre, is the inscription: Hec est: crvx: Coleni: Mc: Heachyrna: et Katirine: uxoris: eivs (Drummond, Sculptured monuments of Iona, pl. lxxxi). This is probably Colin MacEachern, who was the chief of the Macecherns in 1499. Charles M’Caichrane held lands in Kintyre, 1605 (HP., III, p. 84). The name Anna Cheacharna is for Ann Maceachearn and Iain Ceachairne is for John Maceachearn... MacAcharn and McAcherne 1506, McAchern 1505, Makauchern 1507,M’Caichrane 1605, Makcacherne 1515, M’Caikorn 1694, McCauchquharn 1515, M’Caychirn c. 1512, McCCochran 1684, M’Eacharin 1647,M’Eacharne 1596, M’Gacharne, M’Kecherane, McKechern, M’Kechran, M’Kechrane and M’Kechren all 1605. Epidion Akron is the name of the Mull of Kintyre in the Geography of Ptolemy, c. 140 A.D. The root of the name is epos, horse; the Epidii, a British tribe, were the ‘horse folk,’ and it is interesting to note that Kintyre in historic times has always been claimed as the home of the Maceacherns or Macecherns.

Kilkerran referenced above and below refers to a location on the Kintyre peninsula which is now a suburb of Campbeltown. Kilkerran means Ciaran's Church or place and for many centuries, Campbeltown was known as Kinloch Kilkerran or 'The Head of the Loch of the Church of Ciaran'. Who was Ciaran you might well ask? He was an Irish monk who first journeyed to Kintyre in 536 AD, a full 27 years before the arrival of his famous contemporary Columba. It is said he made his home in a cave on the shore of Auchenhoan, about a mile along the coast from the mouth of the Campbeltown Loch. He began his missionary work in the Campbeltown area , founding the first Christian church on the site of what is now Kilkerran Cemetery. (photo to follow) The shaft of the cross with the McEachern name still stands at the entrance to the cemetery. This damaged Celtic cross represents a significant historical artifact for the McEachern family.

Andrew McKerral published Kintyre in the Seventeenth Century (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd,) in 1948, the year after I was born. He presented notes on the principal families who were living on the Crown lands of Kintyre in July 1505 based on the rental list prepared by Archibald, the 2^nd Earl of Argyll. The following information is given concerning the Maceachans and the Macecchrans on pages 10-11.

"The Macheachans of Tangy are a family of which we have little early record, but it is most probable that they were feuars of the church lands of Skierchanzie, or Kilkenzie, which in pre-Reformation days belonged to Iona. As church lands were not detailed in the rentals of 1505, this connection cannot be traced therein, but the names of several of the family occur as tacksmen of secular lands in the same locality. In 1623 Charles MacEachan of Tangy, who was later factor to Lord Lorne, received a charter of the lands of Tangy and others from the Bishop of Argyll. They retained their estate down to 1709, when it was conveyed to Robert Semple."

"The Maceachrans of Kilellan were the Mairs of Fee of South Kintyre, and were represented in 1505 by Colin of Kilellan, who, in 1499, had received a charter of his lands of Kilellan, and of his office of Mair of Fee, from King James IV. He is almost certainly the Colin who, with his spouse Katherine, is commemorated in the fine but injured Celtic Cross which lies in Kilkerran cemetery, and most probably was either a brother or nephew of Ivar Maceachran, Rector of Kylreacan (probably Kilneachtan in Islay), who is commemorated on the Town Cross of Campbeltown. They lost their estate temporarily during the Montrose wars, but recovered it from the Marquis of Argyll in 1659, and Killelan was possessed by them down to about 1740, when the male line came to an end in Neil Maceachran."

The Weekly Scotsman of Thursday, 3 September ran the following item: "Stories of the Clans: The McEacherns" by Allan Douglas. (used by kind permission of Scotsman Publications)

"I know a family of McEacherns who are ‘daft’ on horses. They have a right to be. They are descended from great horsemen; and their full name in Gaelic is Mac each thigh earna meaning son of the horse leader or horse lord.

The peninsula of Kintyre is their ancestral homeland, and it is interesting to learn that long before the Dalriadic Scots arrived from Ireland, Kintyre was peopled by a horse-tribe whom the Romans called the Epidii — from epos, horse. The area’s soil was less suited for crops than for grazing which explains how Kintyre became famous for raising horses. An ancient Gaelic saying describes Knapdale, north of Kintyre, as a place where ‘they put skill into the horse,’ meaning they trained horses there. Knap itself may be a contraction of Capull, an Old Gaelic word for horse.

"On file at the National Library, Edinburgh, is a brief history by Mr. A. McKerral, which claims McEacherns held the Kintyre lands of Killellan until about the mid-eighteenth century, first under the McDonald Lords of the Isles, then by Crown charter, and finally under the Campbells of Argyll.

"Kintyre is but a short distance from the Isle of Islay where McEacherns were hereditary amourers to the Lords of the Isles. As sword-smiths, they forged perhaps the finest broadswords in all the Highlands. An old Statistical Account says they received the Islay lands of Coul or Cull from MacDonald, Lord of the Isles, in exchange for a flounder! As a sept of Clan Donald, they made their great broadswords on a site just southwest of present-day Kilchoman Church, behind a rock-face known as Creag Uinnsinn. "Many grave-slabs in Kilchoman Churchyard, site of the famed Kilchoman Cross, are embossed with carved examples of these swords."

The content of the first three sections of this page were summarized from an article written by Sally Trotter in the © Argyll Colony Plus a publication of the North Carolina Scottish Heritage Society. For the original article, please click here.

In the Web Edition of Kintyre Magazine, a publication of the Kintyre Antiquarian and Natural History Society, Norman S. Newton provides a detailed description and narrative about the inscription on the shaft of the MacEachern Cross at Kilkerran as well as comments on its style. It appears on page 3 of the Web Edition #27 from March 1999. Read it here (used with permission). There are other fine articles in this magazine, currently edited by Ian Forshaw. For the home page of the magazine where you can read back issues click here.

In Kilkerran Cemetery are two portions of the shaft of a cross, erected to commemorate Colin MacEachern and his wife Katherine. The base is on the site of the mediaeval church, surrounded by the graves of later MacEacherns, while the upper part lies with other stones near the cemetery entrance.

At the top of the front of the shaft is a 12-line inscription in Latin, in a style of lettering known as Lombardic Capitals, suggesting a date of before 1500:

The Latin Calenus or Colinus, is for the Gaelic personal name Cailean. Macheachyrna is from Gaelic Mac, 'son of", each, 'horse' and tighearna, 'lord' - 'son of the horse lords. The name also appears on the Campbeltown Cross of around 1380 (from which it may have been copied) commemorating Ivor and Andrew MacEachern, father and son, successive pastors at Kilkivan, near the village of Machrihanish, to the west of Campbeltown. We know from contemporary documents that Colin MacEachern was chief of the MacEacherns of Killellan, in the neighbouring parish of Kilblane (Kilblaan), now part of Southend parish. A royal charter of 1499 confirmed him in the office of inner of South Kintyre, a hereditary post granted to him by John, the last Lord of the Isles; he was also confirmed in grants of land at Killellan and other lands In the parish of Kilblane. As all the lands of the Lordship were forfeited In 1493, Colin MacEachern must have been the chief by that year, and perhaps even by 1475, when John's lands in Kintyre were forfeited.(1) The MacEacherns held Killellan until about 1740, when the male line came to an end.(2) In 1507 Colin was given the office of Chamberlain for South Kintyre, and granted further lands, which he had been leasing previously from the Earl of Argyll. These lands included Glenramskillmore, which we know was given to the church of Kilkerran by Colin before 1507, thus establishing a connection with the church where the cross dedicated to Colin MacEachern and his wife is found.

In 1511 Colin's eldest son Malcolm was granted some of the MacEachern lands, including Killellan. We know that Colin was still alive at that date, as the grant included a provision that he should be allowed to enjoy the fruits of these lands for his lifetime. By 1525 his second son Andrew had succeeded him, but there is no record of Colin's death.

Colin had previously applied to the Church, in 1510, for legitimating of his six sons: Malcolm, Andrew, John, Donald, Eachann and Niall, probably in preparation for the grant of lands to Malcolm and to make the ownership of the clan lands more secure for his successors. Apart from being born out of wedlock, the most common reason for such an application at this time was that the parents were too closely related, thus infringing the forbidden degrees of kinship between partners.

Under the Inscription, the front of the MacEachern Cross has two small panels: in the left panel is a pair of shears, perhaps symbolizing Colin's involvement in the cloth industry, while the right panel is blank. Below is a niche containing a man and a woman embracing - presumably Colin and Katherine - and a warrior on horseback, with sword, spear, spurs and pointed helmet. At the bottom of the shaft is a galley with sails furled, showing the masts and rigging. The hinged rudder characteristic of the West Highland broiling is clearly visible, and there is a shield embossed with a trefoil between the prow and the rigging. Traditionally the adoption of the hinged rudder is attributed to Somerled, ancestor of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles who ruled Kintyre and the Western isles from the 12th century until the last forfeiture in 1493.

The reverse side of the shaft has at its top a square panel of plait work interlaced with four rings. Below it, in a niche, is a Crucifixion scene, showing Christ being speared by two soldiers. The rest of the shaft is made up of interlaced foliage, terminating at the bottom in a dragon or griffin attacking another beast. The edges of the shaft are decorated with a variety of patterns: a leaf-scroll (which ends in a dragon's head) and a T-fret design on the right edge; a three-cord ribbon plait and a straight fret on the left edge. (3)(4)

The style of decoration suggests that this cross is a product of the Kintyre school of carving based at Saddell Abbey from c 1425 to c 1500.(5) It is very similar to the cross at Kilkerran commemorating Gliclirist MacKay and his wife, arid to the cross at Saddell Abbey for an Alexander (the rest of the inscription is missing). Fragments of a cross-shaft from Kilchousland, two miles north--east of Caupheltown, can be seen in the Campbeltown Museum. Another fragment of a cross-head has recently come to light at Saddell. It was common for such crosses to be erected during the lifetime of the persons honoured, and taking into account the documentary evidence, artistic style and lettering. It seems likely that the MacEachern Gross was made in the 1490s; thus it is over a hundred years younger than the Campbeltown Cross, which from its inscription and style was carved at Iona around 1380.(6)

Apart from the Saddell crosses, nothing survives of the cross-heads to indicate their design. At Saddell, enough survives to be able to say with assurance that the heads had the shape of a cross-patonce.(7) This is seen fully preserved on the cross at Inveraray, which, like the disk-headed Campbeltown Cross, was made on Iona. The choice of cross-head was probably a matter of preference by the person commissioning the work.

Recent work on the late mediaeval carved stones of the West Highlands has identified five different schools of carving, based in workshops at Iona, Saddell, Loch Awe (Kilmartin), Loch Sween (Kilmory) and Oronsay. The Iona school dates from 1350, and has its own distinctive style. After 1500 the lettering used in all the workshops changed from Lombardic capitals to the style known as black letter: this transition took place in England about 150 years earlier.

(1) STEER, K A and BANNERNAN, J.W.M., Late medieval monumental sculpture in the West Highlands, RCAHMS, 1977, no. 99, 157-8.

(2) MCKERRAL, Andrew, Kintyre in the seventeenth century, Oliver and Boyd, 1948, 10-11.

(3) WHITE, T P, Archaeological sketches in Scotland: District of Kintyre, Blackwood, 1873, 95 and Plate VIII.

(4) ROYAL COMMISSION ON THE ANCIENT AND HISTORICAL MONUMENTS OF SCOTLAND, Argyll: an inventory of ancient monuments, Vol 1: Kintyre, RCAHMS, 1971, no. 285/3, 126.

From the pages of Steve Gilchrist's Islay site on Rootsweb is the following summary of the McEachern family based on notes from a lecture by Dr. David Caldwell.

The MacEacherns

There is a tradition that the MacEacherns of Islay were smiths to the Lords of the Isles. There is a medieval grave-slab at Finlaggan that may commemorate a member of this family. It is uninscribed, but has a fine representation of an anvil. Islay sword hilts, made by these smiths, are famous in Gaelic tradition, though I have yet to establish what they were like. There are no surviving medieval documents with the names of MacEachern smiths. Indeed the only smith on Islay surnamed MacEachern that can be traced is John McEachern in Killarow, given a tack in the late eighteenth century [29].

An early eighteenth-century history of the Campbells of Craignish says that this family of hereditary smiths were at that time commonly called Clan Gowan (from Gaelic gobhainn, a smith or blacksmith), and incidentally, says there was another branch of them long established in Morvern, in mainland Argyll [30]. It is possible that the Malcolm McGown who appears as the tenant of Tighcargaman in the Parish of Kildalton in 1541 is one of these smiths. Donald MacGuin of Esknish in the Parish of Killarow was one of the men of Islay who petitioned the Privy Council about 1600 in support of Angus MacDonald of Dunyvaig and his son James[31]. Tighcargaman and Esknish still had MacGowan tenants in 1631, and there were others elsewhere on the island at Kilbride (Kildalton P.), Tiervaagain and Ballighillan (both Killarow P.). Gillycreist Gow Smyth, tenant of Carnbeg (Killarow P.), might be a practicing smith, and possibly of the same kindred. It is likely that many Islay folk of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, surnamed Smith, are descendants of the MacEacherns and MacGowans.

There is another Islay family of interest in this context, the MacNocards. Their name is derived from the Gaelic for the son of the ceard, meaning a smith or metalworker, often with the sense of someone who worked in copper and silver, rather than iron. There was a Gilcrist McNarkerde in Braid (Kilchoman P.) in 1541 and several tenants with this surname occur in later rentals on various Islay lands, including Gearach in the Parish of Kilchoman (Donald McNokard in 1733 and 1741). It is believed that at a later date MacNokards in Argyll generally adopted the name Sinclair [32], and Sinclairs do indeed turn up in Islay rentals of the eighteenth century.

The lands of Braid and Gearach are adjacent to each other, and the former possibly included, or was certainly near, Caonis Gall, said to have been the home of the MacEachern smiths [33]. There is also a small valley called the Gleann na Ceardaich (glen of the smiddy) less than a mile to the north. It is possible that the MacNokards were also descended from the MacEachern smiths of the Lords of the Isles. It is worth pointing out that the tenants of Gearach in 1733 included Donald McNokard, Archibald McKecheran and Donald Smith, perhaps all distantly related [34].

After reading the above pages I thought briefly about changing my name to 'Carlton McEachern de Ile' such as Angus Mor had done but later came to my senses. Its hard enough for people to spell the shortened version. It is also interesting to note that our own Angus son of Neil son of Farquhar was for a time a blacksmith in Eldon township.

In June of 2001, Marcia McEachron published the following on the Rootsweb Islay forum. Her original post and follow-up posts can be found here.

From: MarciaMcEachron
Subject: [SCT-ISLAY] Re: SCT-ISLAY-D Digest V01 #126
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 16:10:00 EDT

Ian MacEachern has put together an interesting site on the MacEacherns complete with animated bagpipers and the unregistered McEachern Clan Chief's Coat of Arms. Unfortunately, Ian's site is temporarily offline.

Now that we have a better idea of the origin of the name McEachern, lets explore briefly how the family relates to the Clan MacDonald and the Lord of the Isles. Click here to proceed.