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Scottish Tattoo Designs >> MacArthur

MacArthur Clan Tattoos - The Macarthurs are Celts, and the family of Arthur is one of the oldest clans in Argyll, so ancient that even in remote Celtic times there was a Gaelic couplet which is freely translated, 'the hills and streams and Macalpine but whence came forth Macarthur?'

The Macarthurs supported Robert the Brude in the struggle for the independence of Scotland, and their leader, Mac-ic-Artair, was rewarded with lands in mid-Argyll, which had belonged to those that opposed the king. Over the many years many descendents of Arthur dispersed, some settling in Skye where one of the family of Macarthurs set up a famous piping school and were for several generations hereditary pipers to the Macdonalds of Sleat. The most celebrated of this family was Charles, who received his piping instructions from Patrick Og Maccrimmon. Anaother branch of the family became armourers to the Macdonalds of Islay. The two families of Macarthurs came to the fore in the late 1400's around Loch Awe. There had been a good deal of confusion between the Macarthurs of Loch Awe and the Macarthur Campbells of Strachur and loch Fyne.

The Macarthurs of Milton, at Dunoon, hade by the middle of the 1680's produced a baillie in Kintyre and a chamberlain to the Marquis of Montrose in Cowal. The Macarthurs also sought their fortune abroad, and Clonel John Macarthur became military deputy governor of St. Kitts in the Caribbean. A large number of the clan, many of whom fought on both sides in the Jacobite risings, left Scotland, particularly after the disaster of Culloden in 1746, eventually to settle in the West Indies, America and Canada.

Clan MacArthur Motto: Fide Et Opera
From Latin: By fidelity and labour

See also: Claddagh, Thistle Tattoos, Scottish Lion Tattoo Designs, Welsh Dragon Tattoos, Scottish Tattoo Designs, Celtic Tattoo Designs, Family Crests,