Clan MacQuarrie
The MacQuarries held Ulva, Staffa and Gometra off the west coast of Mull, along with tracts on Mull itself. The name is taken from the personal name Guaire, and a descent from a ninth-century figure of that name is traditional rather than documented. The earliest chief who can be fixed in record is John Macquarrie of Ulva, who died in 1473.
The clan fought at Inverkeithing in 1651 alongside the Macleans. Johnson and Boswell were entertained on Ulva in 1773 by Lachlan Macquarrie, who had already sold much of the island in 1777 under the weight of debt. He died on 14 January 1818, reportedly past a hundred years old, and was the last chief of the name. Nobody has claimed the chiefship since, and the Lord Lyon has recognised neither a chief nor a commander, so Clan MacQuarrie is today an armigerous clan without a chief. That is worth stating plainly, because retail pages frequently invent one.
The MacQuarrie tartan
The Scottish Register of Tartans holds seven MacQuarrie records, all in the Clan/Family category: MacQuarrie #2 dated 1810, #3 dated 1816, #4 dated February 1830, #5 dated 1831, #6 dated 1850, MacQuarrie dated 1886, and #7 dated 1930. The register treats these as separate entries, so there is genuinely more than one MacQuarrie threadcount rather than one design under several names.
Two things stand out. The first is that none of the seven carries the 1842 date, which means no MacQuarrie sett comes from the Vestiarium Scoticum, the Sobieski Stuart book of that year that was exposed as a forgery and that lies behind a great many clan tartans. The second is that the 1810 and 1816 entries fall within the working life of Wilsons of Bannockburn, the firm that named and numbered most of the early clan patterns; that makes a Wilsons origin plausible for them, but the register’s designer field is not something we have been able to read, so we will not claim it.
A note on honesty: MacQuarrie Ancient, Modern, Weathered and Muted as sold are dye colourways of a registered sett, not tartans in their own right. No MacQuarrie sett predates the commercial era — the earliest register date, 1810, is more than three centuries after the first chief appears in record and eight years short of the death of the last one.
Clan facts
| Chief | None. The chiefship has been vacant since the death of Lachlan Macquarrie of Ulva on 14 January 1818; MacQuarrie is an armigerous clan. |
|---|---|
| Motto | Turris fortis mihi Deus — “God is to me a tower of strength” |
| Plant badge | Pine |
| Lands | Ulva, Staffa and Gometra, with lands on Mull. No castle or designated seat is recorded. |