MacDonald

The register holds the threadcount behind a login, so this page gives no count. It says the green was lightened to show the sett, and that the pattern differs slightly from versions documented by Logan, Smibert and Grant while keeping the same motifs. The colours listed on this page are approximate and are not read from the registered sett.

The main record is dated 1819 and has no named designer. The register says it matches the version in the 1880 Clans Originaux and cites the Scottish Tartans Society's note that it is the oldest recorded version of the clan sett. A woven sample is held in the Scottish Tartans Authority's Scarlett Collection.

The register does not say who first wove or wore the sett, or whether 1819 is the year of the earliest surviving record or of the cloth itself. What it describes is a record, not a founding.

The register shows the sett spreading into many versions. It lists MacDonald Dress, several branch setts, and separate records for Clanranald, Sleat, Glencoe, Kingsburgh and Staffa. Several come from published collections of the 19th century, from paintings, or from museum cloth, so the branch names often record where a sett was found, not a grant made by a chief.

The clan's own account is that a high chief was recognised again in 1947, and the register's notes say authority over clan tartans rests with the chief. The High Council of Clan Donald is the source for that recognition, not a record of any tartan ruling.

The register spells the name MacDonald and lists related records under MacDonald of, MacDonell of and Macdonald, so searching one spelling misses others. Three branch records are described in the sections below: Clanranald, Sleat, and Lord of the Isles Hunting. The register also holds MacDonald Dress (1880), MacDonald of Glengarry (Full Dress), Kingsburgh and Staffa, which this site does not yet cover.

The register ties the tartan to Clan Donald, which it describes as nine independent branches. Each branch has its own chief and its own sett or setts. The main MacDonald record is the clan-wide one, and branch tartans are separate records with separate sources. Sharing the MacDonald name does not by itself show descent from any one branch.

The register's records mention weavers: modern weavers use the blue-tramline form of MacDonald Dress, and D. C. Dalgliesh reproduced the Glencoe fragment in the 1980s. No sourced sales or usage figures are held for the MacDonald tartans.

Clanranald is one of the nine branches of Clan Donald, and the register holds two Clanranald records, both dated 1819. They are separate records, and the register does not say they are the same sett.

The better documented one (STA reference 427) is based on a count in the Register of the Court of the Lord Lyon, recorded in 1946. It corresponds to the setts given by A. and W. Smith in 1850 and by J. Grant in 1886, is distinguished by two white lines, and a certified example is held in the Highland Society of London collection. The second (STA reference 4521) names Wilsons of Bannockburn as designer and gives only a count for the 24 reed with 5 half setts.

The register does not explain how a count recorded in 1946 carries an 1819 date, and this page does not guess. A Lyon count recorded in 1946 shows what was fixed in that year, not what was woven in 1819. The Wilsons attribution names a weaving firm, so it describes a source of cloth, not a chief's choice.

What the record does not show: who designed the Lord Lyon version, why two 1819 records exist, and what the Wilsons record looks like beyond a reed count. For wearing, the register lists no restriction and the records say nothing about who by tradition wears it, so ask Clanranald's chief or the clan society before treating it as limited to one family.

Sleat, on Skye, is one of the nine branches of Clan Donald. The register's MacDonald of Sleat record has no tartan date and no designer. Its note says the tartan was manufactured in the 18th century as MacDonald of Sleat, Lord of the Isles, and was devised from an old MacDonald tartan shown in a painting at Armadale Castle.

The note then qualifies its own claim: the reconstruction appears to differ somewhat from the original, and whether that was intended or a mistake is open to conjecture. A tartan copied from a painting is a reading of the painter's colours and the weaver's interpretation, so the surviving sett may differ from both. The register also says the sett is the same as Middleton, and a sample is held in the Scottish Tartans Authority's Dalgety Collection. A sett shared with a surname tartan means the Sleat name may be a later label, and the name alone does not show a Sleat connection.

The alternative name Lord of the Isles in the note does not describe a medieval tartan. The only documented source is an old painting, the register does not give its date, and no sources read describe cloth from the period of the medieval lords.

What the record does not show: the painting's date, when the Sleat name became attached, and the threadcount. The register lists no restriction and says nothing about wearers.

MacDonald, Lord of the Isles Hunting is dated 1950 on the register (STA reference 2209), and its source is a portrait at Armadale Castle, Skye, dating from about 1765. The register says it matches D. W. Stewart's woven silk sample in Tartans Old and Rare, and that the blue-green version is worn by Godfrey Macdonald, High Chief of the Macdonalds. The 1950 date is a recording date for the record and cannot be read as the year the pattern was first worn.

Two points keep the title in proportion. A portrait of about 1765 is separated by centuries from the medieval Lords of the Isles, so the name describes the title the pattern is associated with, not a cloth from their time. And the register's separate Lord of The Isles record (STA reference 873, category Other) is dated 1750 and taken from the portrait of the MacDonald Boys by Jeramiah Davidson in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. These are different records and different cloths. Neither is the Vestiarium design, MacDonald of the Isles (1842).

The register's notes also say the tartan was worn by Edward VIII and his father as Lord of the Isles, and by Prince Charles in 1997, citing the Scottish Tartans Society archive. That is the society's statement and has not been checked elsewhere.

For wearing, the register lists no restriction, but its note ties the blue-green version to the High Chief, so ask Clan Donald before wearing it as a chief's or family tartan. The sitter in the portrait and the threadcount are not established here.