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Cormac's Cave

S of River Lochay, W of Killin,, Perthshire.

Generic reference for Cormac's Cave. Supposed hiding place of Angus Odhar MacRaghaill. Exact location not known.

Two accounts of an encounter between the Breadalbane Campbells and the MacDonalds of Glencoe and Keppoch. The Breadalbane tradition was recorded in a paper presented to the Gaelic Society of Inverness in 1905/6, the Glencoe story is printed in the Dewar mss. and the Brae Lochaber version comes from D.C. Macpherson's account in the The Highlander and a letter printed in Gaelic Studies, Aberdeen Vol. XI. [Clan Donald Magazine]

Dated it accurately from entries in the Kenmore Parish Register which gives the date as 4th June 1646.

The Dewar ms. gives a graphic account. It describes how the Glencoe men had heard that Breadalbane's daughter was to be married to Menzies of Culdares in Glenlyon. It seemed a good opportunity for a raid and they called in their Keppoch neighbours to help them. "The two bands met in the upper part of Rannoch on the day appointed and they reached Breadalbane. This being the wedding day of Breadalbane's daughter, the gentlemen of the country were at the wedding and the whisky was in their heads."

The lifting of the cattle in Glen Dochart and possibly from the south-west end of Loch Tay would present few difficulties. The problem for the raiders was that before they reached the comparative security of Rannoch moor they had to pass behind Killin, where the wedding was being celebrated at Breadalbane's castle Finlarig. From there, where they could not fail to disturb the wedding party, there was a drive of about fifteen miles up the side of Glen Lochay and the head of Glen Lyon. This country was all against them. Moreover, it was the beginning of June. The cattle would still be weak and slow. The calves would be small and hard to drive. Rather than fight on the retreat, the MacDonalds having passed Killin, stood on the hill of Sron a Clachain, north of the village between the slow moving cattle and their disturbed owners.

The accounts of the battle vary according to the source. All agree, however that the bridegroom Menzies of Culdares had been a professional soldier. Known as the "red-headed crower", he had been a penniless poultry boy but had served under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany and came back with sufficient fortune to buy an estate in Glen Lyon. Knowing the ground and with his experience, he tried to avoid a direct attack. He wanted to turn the MacDonalds' position to the east and take the high ground behind them. He was however overruled. The Breadalbane men, inflamed with whisky, attacked straight up the hill. For once the MacDonalds had every advantage and the result was almost a massacre. Menzies himself was wounded and it is said that fifteen Campbell tacksmen were killed.

Unfortunately, in the pursuit the chief of the Keppoch family, Angus Odhar was severely wounded. The Campbell records say that he was killed instantly in a duel with Culdares. The Glencoe account says that rather than share the spoils, their men insisted on taking the cattle, leaving the Keppoch men to carry their chief home. The Brae Lochaber accounts which vary slightly in detail agree however that after a dispute among themselves, his clansmen left Angus Odhar severely wounded in a Sheiling above Glen Lochay at Corrie Charmaig. It may have been part of the family rivalry which was to culminate in the Keppoch murders 20 years later. Angus Odhar's father Ranald Og had been an outlaw for many years and his brothers had led the Clan. It is one of these, Donald Gorm, described by Macpherson as a fiend incarnate, who is blamed by him for the decision to take a share of the booty but to leave the wounded chief to his fate. It is possible on the other hand that his clansmen believed that he was so badly wounded that the only hope for Angus Odhar was to lie hidden and wait for his wounds to mend. There is a story that he was entrusted to the wife of the farmer who was a MacDonald and who hid him from her husband. [Clan Donald Magazine]

Iain Lom the famous Gaelic poet who lost his father in the raid gives no hint that his chief was betrayed. His account, one of his earliest poems speaks movingly of his chief. "The raid to Loch Tay has darkened my way, Angus lies dead by its waters" and "what wrung tears from my eyes was the gap in your side as you lay in the house of Corie Charmaig". Iain Lom was a legend for his outspokenness and it is unlikely that he would have kept quiet if he saw this as a betrayal. The outcome was however that the Campbells found the wounded chief and dispatched him.

Sron a Clachain was not a great battle. It was however more than a mere cattle raid. It shows how, in time of civil war, the clans turned to "lifting" on a much larger scale and used the war to pursue their own private vendettas. Keppoch had been burnt by the Campbells in 1640 and with raids and counter-raids, the young men of the clan will have had little thought of peaceful farming. It was a situation which persisted more or less continuously to the end of the century. Sron a Clachain is however unusual in that it is so well documented and it was, of course a considerable victory over the traditional enemy. [Clan Donald Magazine]

When the Keppoch men fled, they left Mac Raghnaill lying in Cormac's Cave at the top of Glen Lochay. There was a woman from his district living in a township called Corrycharmaig in Glen Lochay, and she started going to see Mac Raghnaill once a day to comfort him. There was a cowherd in the Marg Mór on the other side of the glen, and he saw the woman going to the cave. When she'd left, he went to the cave himself, and on entering, he found Mac Raghnaill there. Then he went to the Campbells and told them how he'd found Mac Raghnaill in the cave. A party of the Campbells went to the cave with the cowherd, intending to bring Mac Raghnaill home with them and keep him until they could get compensation for the plunder that had been taken from them. But the cowherd was ransacking and searching back and forth all over the cave and found his own father's plaid. Leaping to the conclusion that it was Mac Raghnaill who'd killed his father, he went into a rage, and the gentlemen present were unable to prevent him thrusting his dirk into Mac Raghnaill and killing him, as a result of which the Campbells had nothing they could use to demand compensation. So the matter fell into abeyance until Iain Glas ('Grey John', 1st earl of Breadalbane) obtained money to divide amongst the Highland clans, and kept the Glencoe people's share as restitution for the plunder they'd lifted on the day of Sròn a' Chlachain - and that was the cause of the Massacre of Glencoe. [Dewar]

Alternative Names: None recorded.

Notes: Coordinates given are arbitary between the streams of Allt Airidh an Fraoich and Allt Coire Charmaig. There is no known cave at this location.

MacRaghnall means 'Son of Ranald' and applies to Angus Odhar , chief of the men of Keppoch, son of Ranald Og.

Sron a Chlachain is a hill west of Killin: a minor summit at the end of a ridge which continues west to Creag Mhor, SW of Lochan nan Damh at the watershed between Allt Airidh an Fraoich and Allt Coire Charmaig.

Small quantities of Steatite (massive, fine-grained talc) have been recovered from numerous serpentinite bodies occurring between Portsoy and Blairgowrie. Talc is generally located along shear planes in these bodies, whereas part of a small intrusion at Corrycharmaig, near Killin has been altered to an aggregate of talc and breunnerite. [BGS]