Clan Buchanan - Clairinsh - Framed & Mounted Photo Print

Clairinsh is a small, wooded island in Loch Lomond, set within the Lennox district east of the loch, and it was the ancestral seat of the Buchanan chiefs. The clan adopted the island's Gaelic name, Clàr-Innis, as their battle cry, and held this territory for centuries following the grant of Lennox lands to their founding ancestor, Anselan O'Kyan, by Malcolm II around 1016. The most celebrated of the Buchanans was a man of scholarship rather than the sword. George Buchanan (1506-82) became one of the foremost Latin scholars in 16th-century Europe, serving as tutor to Mary, Queen of Scots, and later to the young James VI, becoming Keeper of the Privy Seal. The clan's ancestral estates were sold to the Graham Dukes of Montrose in 1682 to settle debts, ending centuries of Buchanan lordship in the Lennox. Photographer Aly Wight captured Clairinsh for the Clanscape heritage print series.

If the Buchanan name runs in your family, that island in Loch Lomond was once your clan's seat of power.