Clan MacDonald of Sleat (MacDonald of Sleat Tartan)

Clan MacDonald of Sleat History

Clan MacDonald of Sleat, also called Clan Donald North, was founded by �isdean (Hugh), sixth-great-grandson of Somerled, the 12th-century Lord of the Isles. In 1469, John II, Lord of the Isles, granted his half-brother Hugh much of the lands previously held by Ranald, including territory in South Uist, Benbecula, and North Uist - establishing the Sleat branch's territorial base on Skye and the southern Hebrides.

The clan's ancestral seat, Dunscaith Castle, served the family from 1469 until 1632, after which the seat moved briefly to North Uist and finally to Armadale - Gaelic for "arms valley" - where Armadale Castle sat at the heart of a 20,000-acre Skye coastal estate. The castle was sold in 1971 following the death of Alexander Godfrey MacDonald, 7th Lord MacDonald and High Chief of Clan Donald, and is today owned by the Clan Donald Lands Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving the clan's heritage.

The Sleat MacDonalds paid an especially heavy price for their unwavering Jacobite loyalty - many clansmen were transported to the colonies, and some were even sold into slavery in the aftermath of the failed risings. The clan's most celebrated member, Flora MacDonald, famously helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to Skye disguised as her maid after his defeat at Culloden in 1746, becoming one of the most romanticised figures of the entire Jacobite era. The clan's long feud with neighbouring Clan MacLeod produced one of the grimmest episodes in Highland history: in 1577, the MacLeods suffocated more than 350 MacDonalds to death by lighting a fire at the mouth of a cave on the Isle of Eigg, wiping out virtually the island's entire population. The current chief is Sir Ian Godfrey Bosville Macdonald of Sleat, 17th Baronet, 25th Chief of Macdonald of Sleat.

Clan MacDonald of Sleat Tartans

The Sleat tartan follows the wider 19th-century revival of Scottish family setts, first recorded in the standard pattern-books compiled after 1815, part of the wider family of over 40 Clan Donald tartans.

Clan MacDonald of Sleat Crest & Coats of Arms

Under Scottish heraldic law, a coat of arms belongs to the individual to whom it was granted, not to a family collectively - the undifferenced arms and chiefship of the Sleat line are held today by Sir Ian Godfrey Bosville Macdonald. The crest badge, identical to the parent Clan Donald crest but without the crown, shows an armoured forearm holding a cross crosslet fitch�e, encircled by the shared Donald motto "Per Mare Per Terras."

Clan MacDonald of Sleat Places & People

Armadale Castle, on Skye, now home to the Clan Donald Lands Trust, remains the spiritual and historical centre of the Sleat MacDonalds today.

Flora MacDonald (1722-1790), whose daring rescue of Bonnie Prince Charlie after Culloden remains one of the most celebrated episodes in all of Jacobite history, is without question the clan's most famous individual member.