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"Remember the people from whence you came"

The MacGillivray Crest is a seated Scottish wild cat with his paw extended and the proud MacGillivray clan motto, “Touch not this cat” meaning "Beware of this cat"

The MacGillivrays were perhaps one of the most important principal clans even before King Somerled, Lord of the Isles, drove the Norsemen out of the Western Isles in the middle of the twelfth century.

In the year 1222, King Alexander 11 of Scotland subdued Argyll, resulting in the dispersment of the Clan MacGillivray. Some of the Clan remained in Mull and Morvern.

During the 14^th century,the Clan Gillivray came under the protection of the chiefs of the Clan Macintosh. Thereafter the Clan belonged to the Clan Chattan Confederation where their loyalty did not go unnoticed.

An important event in 1690, was the great gathering of the Clan Chattan, where all bound aliegance to the Young Macintosh chief. The 'haill kin and race of Macgillivray' was represented by Malcolm Dalcrombie and Duncan Macfarquhar of Dunmaglas.

Clan MacGillivray have always distinguished  themselves  by their prowess and bravery. They were staunch Jacobites, and supported Clan Chattan in both the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rising. While the Mackintosh Chief was serving as an officer In the Hanovarian army, his wife, an avid Jacobite, summoned Alexander MacGillivray and placed him in command of her husband’s Clan Chattan regiment to fight at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 under Bonnie Prince Charlie. Alexander lead his men on Culloden Moor, and the battle was both quick and bloody. The heroic chief, Alexander, was killed when he was shot through the heart. Some weeks after the battle, his body was raised from the Moor’s mass grave by his loyal friends and buried across the threshold of the kirk of Petty where it has rested for over 250 years.

The MacGillivrays of Dalcrombie long held a good position in Inverness-shire, the last owner, Farquhar, having been at Culloden, but fortunately escaped. After the Battle of Culloden, the clan emigrations began across the Atlantic, to North America, Canada and Australia. This clan is now landless, with the estates in Dunmaglas sold off in 1890 but none can take away the fighting spirit of the MacGillivrays.

The last Chief of the clan was John Farquhar MacGillivray, Toronto, Canada. He died without direct heirs in 1942. Since then, no MacGillivray has succeeded in establishing a right to the Chiefship of the Clan.