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Niven: Check out the article by Karen Mathieson
which is on the web page associated with this list or the version reproduced in
the most recent issue of Roslin O' Roslin. It is the best thing I've
seen yet on the MacNokaird/Sinclair diad and extraordinarily strongly researched
piece. The Armada story I have heard in several different contexts from
the explanation of deValera to the complexion of the Black Irish. I
would tend to give that explanation a pass.
Yours
aye................Rory
Whilst looking for some information on an
unrelated subject, I came across the following on Sinclair
septs and
although I know there has been considerable discussion about the Sinclairs
of Argyll, the
following may be of some
interest:
CLAN
SINCLAIR SEPTS
(1) Caird - the Cairds
(Clann-na-ceairde) including both of that name and the romantic
'Romany'
Gypsies of Scotland are reckoned as a
sept of the Sinclair Clan. The name signifies
(Gaelic
ceard or craftsman) a
worker in metals*.
The name has appeared in
various forms such as Macnecaird, MacNokerd, MacIncaird,
etc.
- most frequently on the borders of
Argyll and Perthshire.
MacBain remarks on the Cairds (Sinclairs) as
follows:
"In
the course of inflection the name, Sinclair, when borrowed into
Gaelic,
as it stands, becomes 'Tinkler' pronounced like Scotch
'tinkler', a caird,
and,
in looking about for a suitable equivalent or translation for M'Na
Cearda,
the
popular fancy hit upon what was at once a translation and an
equivalent
M'Na-Cearda
translated into Scotch Tinkler, and passed by a law of
Gaelic
phonetics
into Sinclair (Ma-an-t-Sinclair)
(2) Clyne - as far back as
1561 the Sutherlands of Berriedale were dispossessed by the Earl of
Caithness
in consequence of their cruel treatment of the Clynes, dependents of
the
Caithness family, several members of the former having been killed by
the
Sutherlands.
(3)
Gallie - Gunns from Caithness who settled in Ross in the seventeenth
century were
locally
termed
na Gallaich - the Caithness men. They would appear to be a
Sinclair
sept
by all normal rules**.
* As mentioned in an earlier contribution
to the Sinclair Discussion List, these 'workers in
metal'
were thought to have been the armorers from the
Spanish galley which sank in Tobermory Bay
in 1588.
In support of this suggestion the Sinclairs of Argyll are said to be of
a darker complexion
than their Northern
namesakes.
** One wonders what the Gunns would make of this
suggestion?
Niven Sinclair
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