Arcadia Discussion Zone

Yes, I got that. "Oh nooooooooo!" made it perfectly clear.

TCP

The King is Dead....Long Live the King

http://www.katebush.com/video/king-mountain

The King...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBmAPYkPeYU

It seems that the French prefer a little Franklin County moonshine with their cheese

Cannes Film Festival abuzz over 'Wettest County' moonshine flick
http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/286905

Hollywood is being invaded by the rednecks! Too damn funny....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k9JaWclHbE&feature=youtu.be

Okay....so I'm really slow, but I just realized that Prince Nicholas has made reference to my family in his....uhm...biography.



And Sir Lawrence made reference to the Sacred Kindred of St. Columba, which by definition is Clan Donnachiadh.

I don't know what to think of all this.

Why?

Why did they make references to the Robertson's? What line of questioning were they following?

Uh-oh, has he tried to insert himself? The guy never met a genealogy he didn't try to graft onto his own.



Lord Lir of Orkney? Who the bloody hell is THAT? And what could he mean by the "Plantagenet" Clan Donnachaid?



Well, "Sir" Laurence claimed to have been styled "Prior of the Sacred Kindred of St. Columba" by the soi-disant "Prince Michael of Albany" - for whom the Kindred was actually a Celtic Church for which he himself (Michael) claimed to be the hereditary head. Michael, in considering himself the rightful heir of all things Scottish (regardless of who those things actually belonged to) stepped on a lot of toes during his long run. Thankfully he was exposed, deported, deprived of his UK citizenship and passport, and now moves very clandestinely trying to drum up support among his former followers for a revised comeback. He's not getting many takers, his humiliation was far too public for any of his former friends to want further association with him. And Gardner, the man who essentially made Michael what he was, is dead.



I was standing near the periphery of the huge three-way fallout between Gardner, Michael, and Nick a decade ago, it's a very long, involved and detailed story that would take me a lot of time to refer back to old e-mails in order to properly recap. I can do so if you really, really want me to, but I don't know if anyone else here would be interested so it might have to be taken to PMs or e-mail. I can say truthfully that the name Robertson never came up in anything I ever witnessed coming from Nick or Tracy Twyman back then, at least not to my recollection. But if Nick is anxious to add the Kindred onto his resume then I guess he's sort of have to graft on a Robertson or two onto his already bloated family tree, wouldn't he?

I do have a question though about the Kindred, maybe you can clear it up for me?
My understanding of the Kindred of St. Columba is that it refers to all descendants of Colum Cille's great-grandfather, who was a son of Niall of the Nine Hostages. This distinction passed into the Scots royal line by the marriage of Princess Bethoc to Crinan the Thane of Dunkeld, who was the one with the Kindred connection. Their son King Duncan I passed this association on to his own sons, the eldest two who ruled for a period of time (Malcolm Canmore and Donald Bane) and the third who was...was he the Mormaer of Atholl?...and who is the ancestor of Clan Donnachiadh who connects them to the Kindred. Now, I'm not sure if Donald had descendants but I know Malcolm did and still does today (myself among them); are Malcolm's descendants not equally part of the Kindred along with the Robertsons and MacKinnons and all the rest? If not, why is that since we're all descendants of Colum Cille's great-grandfather? Are the Robertsons heirs to the hereditary abbacy as well as members of the bloodline, is that what distinguishes them?

TCP

Please forgive the post and run. It was the last thing I did on the computer before we started a 4 day weekend.

I actually agonized over what to post for a week....the best I could come up with is asking "why?"

(I didn't know what to post after having found the information. Some of it is really 'out there' and initially upset me; I didn't want to say anything in anger that I might regret later or get green inked).

So, as to the conversation....



Good question. I tried searching for both terms last week and could find them only in the information written by Nick (posted on the internet, word for word, over and over again).

Thank you for offering to share your private correspondence. I don't know if any of it would be relevant to my questions, but then again, I don't know what's in them. Let's see if we can figure out what they were up to without airing anyone's dirty laundry (unless we really have to).

Your question about the Kindred of St. Columba includes information that I have never seen before....I thought Crinan was Columba's uncle (geesh, I'm only 500 years off)....gotta go look at some things again. Researching the Kindred reminds me of a Celtic Knot.

Okay, I wasn't 500 years off, I just got my names confused. Columba was given the Isle of Iona by his kinsman King Conall of Dalriada. I confused Conall and Crinan. So, before Crinan and probably before Columba, we have his kin ruling parts of Scotland.

Is Crinan a descendant of Conall?

Dunkeld is in Strathearn, Perthshire

The title, Mormaer of Strathearn or Earl of Strathearn was just granted to Prince William on his wedding day.



The title has been around since at least 1138AD

Just to put things into perspective for you, Nick Weir isn't what I'd call credible in any sense of the word. In the past he has claimed to be, in addition to a dragon, (a) an elf, (b) an hereditary witch king, and (c) a vampire. There are some other details which I can spell out for you in a private message if you'd like, but I'll warn you they're disturbing, disgusting and upsetting, so you may want to pass on that.



OK, and that most likely means that "Lord Lir" is another one of Nick's followers who he's adopted as his "kin".



It's not a pretty picture, so if you would just as soon not hear it that's fine, I don't blame you. Suffice it to say that Nick is a "bloodline" enthusiast, probably influenced more by Laurence Gardner's work (they co-wrote a book together but Nick got stiffed on the title credit and royalties) than by HBHG, but he's managed to work the latter into his production just the same. And David Icke plays an influential role as well. In short, Nick has made himself the penultimate heir of every pertinent bloodline, historical and mythical, and has set himself up as sort of a cult leader.



Yes, according to the histories and legends Crinan was a descendant and member of the Cenél Conaill, the dynastic clan whose progenitor was Conall Gulban, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages. Conall was also Columba's great-grandfather, and when Columba referred to his "kindred" he spoke of all the descendants of Conall, and there were/are many different lines. The line from which Crinan sprang seems to have had precedence, however, because the hereditary abbacies of Iona and later Dunkeld (where Columba's relics were moved to after the Vikings sacked Iona) culminated in him (Crinan). Crinan married Bethoc, the daughter of Malcolm II (a descendant of the Cenél nGabraín, another dynastic clan that originated with King Fergus Mór of Dál Riata) and their son Duncan (Donnchad), as you know, succeeded his maternal grandfather as King Duncan I. Duncan's two elder sons (eventually) came to rule, as Malcolm III and Donald III; followed by Malcolm's sons when they switched from the traditonal way of selecting heirs, tanistry, to primogeniture. The third son of Duncan I, Máel Muire, Mormaer of Atholl, was the progenitor of the later Earls of Atholl through whom Clan Donnachaidh and Clan Robertson descends. I thought that perhaps the Abbacy of Dunkeld passed hereditarily through the line of Máel Muire but that doesn't seem to have been the case. Crinan was succeeded as lay abbot by his great-grandson Prince Ethelred, son of Malcolm III, who was the last of the hereditary abbots (Dunkeld was re-organized as a bishopric after Ethelred's death, which ended the hereditary lay abbacy).

So, anyway, my curiosity stems from whether Clan Donnachaidh considers itself to be "the" Kindred of Saint Columba (to the exclusion of all other descendants) or simply part of the Kindred, like all the others. I'm not finding definite answers either way.

TCP

Iona....Island of the Druids.

I find allusions to the Daughters of Atlas/Atlantis also, but not in the direction that this article gets there.

http://www.spiritmythos.org/holy/ROA/sacsites/iona/ion_txt.html

Uh oh, I read as far as "akashic records" and my heart sank.

TCP

Well, it's a problem isn't it? That the information is being grafted into just about anything...witches, vampires....blood rituals....eewww.

I found one article that included all the above and RLC...ley lines and martians! I've been trying to find it this morning; my history from yesterday is huge.

Unfortunately, I didn't see your (TCP) posts until this morning.

The Clan DNA project is coming up with so many different results, I don't see how they can be exclusive.

Now, the Kindred of St. Columba or Cenél Conaill is part of the larger group; Uí Néill

The Uí Néill are part of a larger group; The Connachta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Connachta#Connachta_family_tree

Where does the kindred begin or end?

What do you mean by bloodline?

Well, for me, the beginning isn't the issue since (purportedly) St. Columba himself determined his "kindred" to be the Cenél Conaill, i.e. the subset of the dynasty of Uí Néill begun by his own great-grandfather Conall Gulban. There are other Uí Néill cenéla that descend from brothers of Conall Gulban. The thing is, the Irish and Scottish clan systems are a bit different, and in Ireland cenéla (meaning "descendants of") are specific family kindreds descending from a particular common ancestor within tribes or kingdoms (túatha), while clanna, allied family groups, were subsets within cenéla and finte, specific houses or families, were subsets of clanna. Also, the Irish system was much more fluid, as finte grew in size to become clanna in their own right, and clanna became their own cenéla, etc., with the passing of generations. The Scottish clan system is much more static, with clans being organized more along the lines of Irish cenéla and septs being more like Irish clanna. It can all be a bit confusing.

The thing is, the Kindred of St. Columba is really more of a Scottish notion than an Irish one, i.e. it's an important distinction in Scottish heritage but not so much in Ireland. And in Scotland "kindred" denotes a specific clan and its septs, while in Ireland a "kindred" is its own unique grouping of many clans and their descendant families. Depending on what rules apply, being considered part of Columba's kindred could be inclusive or exclusive by varying degrees. I myself would prefer to think of it as a more inclusive Irish notion wherein common descent regardless of gender is the indicator, rather than a Scottish one which adopted and applied exclusionary requirements of male descent to be considered a full "clansman" while women who married out of their clans didn't carry pass this distinction to their descendants.

So, since my searches haven't turned up a firm answer to my question (probably because St. Columba's Kindred aren't really a clan in the Scottish sense), I'm going with the original Irish meaning of cenél - all descendants of a common ancestor. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

TCP

Related by blood to St. Columba as descendants of the Cenél Conaill. No dragon/elf or extraterrestrial connotations.

TCP

Just checking

Your info on the clan system is really good stuff. I haven't seen the differences explained anywhere. Thank you.

So, what do you think the Sacred Kindred of Columba actually is/was? You've got the priest/king thing going on. Very interesting stuff that.

See, I am wondering about the role tanistry plays in all this. Who has the most power; the king? or the ones who choose the king (the hand behind the crown)? The people/chiefs who did the selecting, probably weren't very happy about losing that power. And it's possible, that instead of loosing power, they were organized or regrouped some other way. It's a premise I'm working on.

I find it odd that the Scots ended up being so...male oriented...in the way they do things considering the Picts were matrilinear.

You're welcome, I find it really interesting too.



Basically, I think it's what the name implies, a kindred or extended family through which hereditary abbacies were passed for several generations. I don't think of it as a priest/king arrangement as none of these hereditary abbots were ever kings (some of them weren't even priests). But there is no doubt that the abbeys Columba founded in Scotland were the seats of religious power an authority in those times, and it was Columba's relatives who - for the most part - held them. Of the first ten abbots of Iona I think all but three were Columba's kin (the 4th, 6th and 7th were not).

I think it was really Laurence Gardner and Michael Lafosse ("Prince Michael of Albany") who first came up with the assertion back in the '80s that the Kindred was some sort of hereditary apostolic line of the Celtic Church that had risen historically to challenge the authority of Rome. Sort of a priestly caste or something along those lines.



Tanistry was often a recipe for internecine violence, that's for sure. Unsuccessful candidates were known to have not taken the loss well. And I think that's part of the reason Duncan I introduced hereditary primogeniture into the royal succession in Scotland.



I don't know that they necessarily ended up that way, I think they already where that way when they came from Ireland to establish a foothold in western Scotland. They capitalized on it by arranging marriages between their sons and Pictish princesses.

TCP

The things I over-look.....

From the clan donnachiadh website



Newbigging is the only connection we have for sure and we totally missed the fact that the clan society has already done some DNA work!

http://www.dunearn.org.uk/index.php/hh

Gen. James Robertson is in my family tree, but we have had a devil of a time finding his kids... including the son I descend from. It would seem a quick DNA test is in my future....the clan is actively searching for Newbigging Robertsons so I have to send them an email. I can't wait to see what they have to say!

Gen. Robertson's daughter married a Henderson of Fordell and from them we have reference to Robertson family documents....
http://195.153.34.9/catalogue/details.aspx?st=1&reference=GB234/GD172



It would seem that I do for sure descend from the King of Scots and maybe even Robert the Bruce! That would be too cool.

get that kilt ready
see how that earldom of orkney was special

But your own personal DNA sample isn't going to tell you anything! It'll only work if your dad, a brother, an uncle, a male cousin, etc., provides the sample. It's got to be an unbroken line of male descent, you don't have the General's Y chromosome but the men in your family would if you are descendants. This is one instance where the poor sons of Adam are entirely necessary!

TCP

I've been doing a lot of work on my spouse's genealogy in recent months, and we (meaning he and several members of his family, aided by myself) just last week completed their clan registration with Finte na hÉireann - Clans of Ireland. I kinda like the Gaelic stuff!

TCP

lots of great history there TCP

I was wondering what was keeping you busy

I was afraid of that, so I asked my oldest son yesterday if he would be willing....of course he thought it would be great!

Edit to add: Do you think my brother would be a better candidate? I could try to get him to do it, but......I don't know if he would or not. Even though his twins are the last 2 Robertson males of our line.

O' McDude!

What fun.

Are we kin?