Most of the Highland families trace their genetics to a well-known individual of warlike integrity. By the accounts of this clan, a hero
who arrived in Ireland with the first Celtic colonists from Spain, and subsequently settled in Scotland, is given as its founder, an
origin which must be classed among the Milesian fables. Mc Farland is from the Gaelic Mac Pharlain meaning "son of Parlan", which
comes from the Old Irish name Partholon, often translated "Bartholomew".
The chief seat of this clan was Arrochar, a district in Dunbartonshire, where the chiefs maintained themselves in respectable
independence, amid the tumults and distractions which raged around them, and luckily escaped the designs of ambitious and
grasping neighbors, by whom other tribes were involved in ruin. They occupied the land forming the western shore of Loch Lomond
from Tarbet upwards. From Loch Sloy, a small sheet of water near the foot of Ben Voirlich, they took their war cry of Loch Sloigh.
The chiefs, and later the clan, took this name from their ancestor Parlan, whose great-great grandfather Gilchrist of Arrochar was a
younger son of Alwyn, Earl of Lennox from about 1180 to 1225. These ancient Celtic earls of Lennox, the remote forefathers of the
Mc Farlands, were themselves Celtic in origin, although they sometimes bore old Anglo-Saxon names because of their descent from
an heiress of the line of the great Northumbrian Thegn Arkil Ecgfrith's-son, who fled to Scotland from William the Conqueror in
1070.
A famous scholar of Celtic myth suggests of the use of the name Parlan by the Lennox family: " that Parlan or Partholon had figured
from time immemorial in the family legend of the Gaelic earls of Lennox as a great ancestor , and possibly as a divine personage".
For the ancient dynastic houses of the Gaels usually traced themselves back to sacred Spirits whom they may have incarnated in
pagan times, and Par-tholon or "Sea-Waves" appears in Irish mythology as the first to take possession of Ireland after the flood.
According to the old Irish Gaelic MS. genealogies, these mormaers or earls of the Lennox sprang from the ancient royal house of
Munster and this is certainly supported by the family's continued use of the Munster royal family names Muireadhach, Maelduin and
Corc as late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The senior branches of the Lennox family came to a grisly end in 1425, when eighty-year-old Duncan, Earl of Lennox, had his gray
head hacked off after being made to watch his own Stewart grandsons being put to death first, all to quell James I's hatred of the
poor old nobleman's late son-in-law, the Regent Albany. From that point on the Mac farlane chiefs claimed to be chiefs of the whole
Lennox clan, as heirs male of the old Earls. But the earldom of Lennox was later regranted to the Stuarts of Darnley, descended from
Earl Duncan's youngest daughter. After bitter opposition we are told that Mac Farlane opposition to them was overcome by the
marriage of the then chief, Andrew Mac Farlane of Arrochar, to the daughter of the new earl.
Andrew's son, Sir Iain Mac Farlane, who used the old style title of "Captain of Clan Pharlane", is said to have fallen under the
English arrows at Flodden in 1513, leading his clansmen in the rearguard commanded by the Earls of Lennox and Argyll. He was
related to both earls, as the Mac Farlanes had acquired lands in 1395 through Duncan Mac Farlane of Arrochar's marriage to a sister
of the 1st Lord Campbell, the then Mac Chailein Mor. Sir Iain's son, known as Andrew the Wizard, was father of Duncan Mac
Farlane of that Ilk, who was killed fighting for Scotland at Pinkie in 1547. His clansmen were earlier described as "men of the head of
Lennox, that spake the Irish and the English-Scottish tongues, light footmen, well armed in shirts of mail, with bows and two-handed
swords". Buchanan of Auchmar wrote:" This Duncan, laird of Mac Farlane, was one of the first, of any account, who made open
profession of the Christian religion in this kingdom". The next chief brought three hundred Mac Farlane clansmen to fight against
Mary Queen of Scots at the Battle of Langside, since her assassinated husband had been the heir of Lennox. "The valliancie of ane
Highland gentleman, named Mac Farlan, stood the Regent's part in great stead, for in the hottest brunte of the fight he came in with
300 of his friends, and so manfullie gave in upon the flanke of the queen's people, that he was a great cause of disordering them." On
this occasion they carried off in triumph three of the enemy's standards.
The turn of the century saw lawless times, and the 1587 act of parliament that sought to bring order among the clans included "the
Laird of M'Farlane of the Arrochar" among those lairds responsible for the good conduct of their clansmen, for the "M'Ferlanis,
Arroquhar" are listed among the "clannis that hes capitanes, cheiffis and chiftanes quhome thay depend, oft tymes aganis the willis of
thair landislordis". This was a Celtic practice, and well adapted to the state of society, for if the natural head of a clan was
responsible for the members individually and collectively, it was evidently his interest to prevent them from becoming turbulent. It
likewise tended to secure and increase the chief's inheritable power and influence. Should any property be stolen, as cattle frequently
were, those through whose lands the robbers passed were bound to pursue and apprehend them if they could, and if the trace should
be lost, the chief in whose lands they were last discovered was obliged to produce the offenders.
In 1589, the Mac Farlanes caught Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss having an affair with their chiefs wife, hunted him to Bannachra,
set fire to his castle, and brought home to the poor lady an unspeakable portion of the Colquhoun chief's corpse-serving it up to her
on a wooden dish with the obscene jest, "that is your share." Again, in 1624 many Mac Farlane clansmen were convicted of armed
robbery. Hence the well-known Mac Farlane pipe-tune is appropriately called Thogail nam bo' "lifting the cattle", and the
cattle-raiders full moon became known as " Mac Farlane's Lantern". After a series of rigorous prosecutions, the clan was finally
broken up in 1624, their name was proscribed, as was that of Mac Gregor, and their lands were considered forfeit.
However, the chiefs managed to retain some of their possessions, and the clan was able to give support to Montrose in 1644 and
1645, as a result of which Cromwell destroyed their castle at Inverglas. In an uprising in 1704 it was calculated that the Mac Farlanes
could muster a force of 300 men, in 1745 it was estimated at 250.
By the eighteenth century, their Arrochar home had been replaced by a comfortable house, the home of the celebrated historian
Walter Mac Farlane who died in 1767. Walter obtained re-matriculation of the armoral achievements of the chiefs, with a destination
to "his heirs" a term which, in Scots law, and in the "law of Arms" as applied in the 15th century Court of Chivalry, includes heirs
female. Some years after this chief's death, a highlander with the second sight prophesied that a black swan would settle among Mac
Farlane's white swans and that when it did the chiefs would lose all their lands. The black swan duly appeared and remained for three
months, after which in 1785 the whole lands of Arrochar had to be sold for debt, and the last Mac Farlane chief emigrated to
America.
The coat of Arms is ascribed to the Mac Farlanes of North Carolina, represented by John Mac Farlane in 1770. They were
descended from the Mac Farlanes of Dunbarton, Scotland. The names were originally spelled Mac Farlane, but it is now by various
branches of the family spelled Mc Farland.
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