MacFie Tartan

Clan MacFie

The name is from Gaelic Mac Dhuibhshìth, son of Duibhshìth, from dubh, black, and sìth, peace. The earliest named individual is Dub Sidhe, recorded as a lector at the monastic community of Iona in 1164. The Victorian antiquary W. F. Skene counted the clan among the seven Siol Alpin clans descending from Alpin, but he conceded that nothing was actually known of their early history, and that descent should be treated as tradition rather than record.

The clan’s documented home is Colonsay and Oronsay, with lands on Jura as well. Donald Macduffie sat on the Council of the Isles in 1463, the firmest early anchor there is, and Donald Monro’s description of the Western Isles in 1549 records a “gentle capitane, callit M’Duffyhe” ruling Colonsay. Malcolm Macfie of Colonsay, the last chief, backed Sir James MacDonald’s rising of 1615, was hunted down and was killed in February 1623 by his former ally Coll Ciotach MacDonald. The story that a gull betrayed his hiding place in the seaweed and that he was tied to a stone and shot is tradition, not record. The clan was dispossessed of Colonsay and dispersed as a broken clan, its members following the MacDonalds of Islay or Clan Cameron in Lochaber, and no line of succession from Chief Malcolm has ever been established.

The MacFie tartan

The Scottish Register of Tartans holds the principal clan sett as a single dual-named entry, MacPhie/Macfie (reference 2727) — one sett serving two spellings. Alongside it sit MacFie Dress (2436), MacFie Hunting (5035), MacFie of Colonsay Dress (5124) and MacPhee (Black and White) (2699), the last of which is plainly a distinct pattern rather than a shade, since a black-and-white sett cannot be a colourway of a red and green one. There is also a record filed as MacPhee MacFee or MacIver (2700), again one entry serving several names. Two spellings have no registered tartan of their own at all: a search for MacDuffie returns nothing under that name, and MacGuffie returns no match. MacDuff, which does appear in a fuzzy search, is an unrelated Fife and Clan Chattan name and must not be confused with it.

Provenance is less certain than the sett’s popularity suggests. The clan’s own body gives the red-and-green tartan a threadcount and notes that it was recorded in the Books of the Court of the Lord Lyon on 29 August 1991, which is a recording and not an origin. The earliest date anyone attaches to the pattern is 1906, and we could not trace that to a named book, weaver or collection. No Wilsons of Bannockburn or Highland Society of London attribution was found, and the name does not appear in the Vestiarium Scoticum. The often-repeated remark that the sett resembles Cameron, supposedly reflecting the clan’s dependence on the Camerons after 1623, is inference rather than documented design history.

A note on honesty: MacFie Modern, Ancient, Muted and Weathered are shade palettes of reference 2727, not separate tartans. Because the register’s detail pages will not load we cannot confirm whether MacFie Dress and MacFie of Colonsay Dress differ as threadcounts, only that they are separate records. No MacFie sett predates the commercial era; 1906 is the earliest claim, and it is a claim rather than a document.

Clan facts

References

1. MacFie tartans — The Scottish Register of Tartans
2. Clan Commander announcement, 7 October 2024 — Court of the Lord Lyon
3. Clan MacDubhsith announces search for Commander — COSCA
4. Crest, motto, plant badge and tartan — Clan Macfie