This web site began as a project initiated when I was a State Commissioner of Clan Donald, USA.  My name is Larry McDonald.  I have been a student of Clan Donald history for over 45 years.   I am a retired police detective so I tend to approach my study of Clan Donald history and genealogy as an investigation.  This may help you understand why the summaries included in this web site will, at times, read like a police report.  Knowing my background may help you understand my motivation to seek out the original sources, assess each historian's motives, and note any inconsistencies.  My training & experience as an interviewer & interrogator have taught me that inconsistencies from different sources do not necessarily indicate one source is incorrect.  Slight inconsistencies actually validate that each testimony came from a different perspective.  Identical, eye witness accounts from multiple sources raise suspicion of witness tampering.  Historical "witness tampering" occurs when history is  manipulated by political or religious entities in order to favor their perspective.   Clan Donald history was practically ignored prior to  The Clan Donald  Vol. I,    Vol. II , and    Vol. III completed in 1904 and the 1978 abridgment into a beautiful one volume book by Donald J. Macdonald entitled "Clan Donald".  This web site's approach to Clan Donald history is to make available the Clan Donald oral & recorded traditions that provide a Clan Donald perspective absent from most histories of Scotland.

I also had the opportunity of living in Scotland for two years which has helped me better understand the histories I have read.  I had the opportunity of returning to Scotland with my wife a few years ago. My wife and I intentionally travelled to, and videotaped the areas once considered Clan Donald lands.  After discussing the opportunity with several friends in Clan Donald we concluded there was a need for a video of the traditional Clan Donald lands, and that sale of such a video should benefit the Clan Donald Lands Trust. 

With the help of my son, Heath McDonald, of hm Studios we produced the Armadale Video.  With the change to DVD format we were able to make copies and ship them more easily, but it was also easier for people to pirate our copyrighted work.  Production of the Armadale Video was stopped in 2009 due to the announcement of a professionally produced DVD by The Clan Donald Foundation.  We have no desire to compete with the efforts of the official Clan Donald organizations to support the Clan Donald Lands Trust.  We encourage your support of the recently released "Armadale Visions" through The Clan Donald Foundation, Inc. and express our sincere gratitude to those who enabled us to send the Clan Donald Lands Trust over $3,000.00 from donations received for the Armadale Video.  The Armadale video is now available in Flash format on this web site.

 Almost all the histories of Scotland and even several histories of Clan Donald  give only the perspective of Clan Donald's foes.  The movie Braveheart (in spite of some inaccuracies) told the events of Scotland from a Scottish point of view.  The people were not rebelling from their "rightful King" as so often portrayed in British histories.  The Scottish people were struggling to be free from the English encroachment.  As Braveheart's William Wallace put it, "Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who hanged heroes."    So it was with Clan Donald and the Lord of the Isles.  They considered themselves a separate kingdom from Scotland with a right to make alliances with kingdoms other than Scotland if it served their interests.  This brought them into conflict with the Scottish crown which lead to several Clan Donald chiefs at the end of a rope and the forfeiture of the Lordship of the Isles.  So with apologies to our Highland friends who felt Braveheart was too much "Hollywood comes to the Highlands"  we began www.clandonald-heritage.com with the attitude that traditional Clan Donald history needed to be told and preserved in an Internet format where it could be read by people of Clan Donald heritage all over the world. 

The information on this web site is either taken from or inspired by Donald J. Macdonald's  authoritative history of Clan Donald.  This work owes much to the National Commissioner of Clan Donald, USA at the time, Ellice McDonald Jr, CBE Delaware.  He made great effort to place a copy with every Clan Donald organization.  When this web site was first created the original publication was out of print and copies difficult to acquire.  Now a second edition is available in a new, beautiful printing for less than the original cost.  We recommend this great work be a part of every library.

Since establishing the web site I have been able to communicate with others who share my passion for preserving our Clan Donald heritage.  I learned of other valuable, rare histories and manuscripts now available through Internet web sites such as Google Books Online and several  libraries that make digital copies available online free as a public service. Among these are the source materials Donald J. Macdonald used to compile his history of Clan Donald.  Going to the original sources led to the discovery that the name "Somerled" is an 18th century mistranslation of our ancestor's original Gaelic name  Sòmhairlidh pronounced "Sorley". This web site is intended to be a resource for those seeking knowledge of their Clan Donald Heritage so links are provided to these online ancient manuscripts that you may decide for yourself.