The McCammond

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The Much Honoured Torcuil Amhlaigh Mànas Ollamh Somhairle [Torquil Aulay Magnus Olaf Somerled] McCammond of McCammond CMarEng CEng MRINA MIMarEST, McCammond of That Ilk, Laird of Kilnavan (Fear Cill Némán) and Torninbach (Tighearna na Tórr na Hinba), 32d Chief of McCammond, Mac mhic Àmond, Mac mhic Iomhair nam Eilean, The Ivarson of the Isles, Sìol (Àmond Mhic) Ímhair, Mac Iohmair Mór, [feudal] Baron of Kilcassan and Tordoraid (Tórr Doraid), Coarb of S Cassan, Fitheach Dubh (The Black Raven), and known personally as Torcall Mór, was born 9 April 1960 to the then Younger of Kilcassan and Tordoraid, Goraidh Mànas Arailt Torold Àmond McCammond of McCammond, and his wife Mórag Marsaili Ùna, daughter of Sir Angus MacIan. Goraidh McCammond of McCammond was the son of Sir Raghnall ‘Ronnie’ Neachdan Goraidh Aonghas McCammond of McCammond KBE CB DSO, late Captain RN.

 The McCammond – as McCammond of McCammond (or, ‘of that Ilk’) is styled –,  Mac Iohmair Mór,  is  a Chartered Marine Engineer, Chartered Engineer, naval architect, and Member of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology. He is, however, most notably a West Highland and Isles landowner, a clan chief, and one of the most noteworthy, and curious, of the untitled nobility of Scotland. Although possessing no peerage titles, he and his forebears have always been accorded a special respect as the ‘sons of Amund Ivarson’, one of the great figures in the history of ‘Innse Gall’, ‘Suðreyjar’, the Isles in the Viking and Norse-Gael periods.

 The Chiefs of McCammond are in fact the senior surviving dynasts of the House of Ivar, the Uí Ímair, who at various periods were Kings of York and over-kings of Mercia, Kings of Northumbria, over-kings of Scotland and of Strathclyde, Kings of the Foreigners, Kings of Dublin, Kings of Gwynedd, Kings of Mann and the Isles, and monarchs of numerous petty kingdoms. They were at the very least related to the Earls / Jarls of Orkney and the Norwegian monarchs, and daughters of the House were queens of Scots and of several Irish kingdoms. The eponymous Ivar is, although scholarly opinion remains divided, commonly identified as Ivar the Boneless, commander of the Great Heathen Army in England in 865, and son of Ragnar Lodbrok (Ragnarr Loðbrók).

 Certainly the McCammonds of McCammond have always borne the Raven Banner, hrafnsmerki, hravenlandeye,   as well as the lymphad and the Red Hand of Ulster; and even dukes have habitually referred to The McCammonds as ‘sir’ and as ‘lords’, although not of course professing any allegiance or deference as such. In the Hebrides, the West of Scotland, and much of Ireland, a lustre and a certain curious respect have always been and continue to be granted any McCammond of McCammond, time out of mind; and their unique heraldry reflects both this respect and their established lineage which commands it.

 The McCammonds are a Roman Catholic clan, and have remained so since their conversion to Christianity, even in the face of persecution.

 The Scots feudal barony of Kilcassan and Tordoraid, with the lairdships of Kilnavan and Torninbach, is treated as if an alloidal barony, held ‘by the Grace of God’ ( see  below), but not – unlike the explicitly so-recognised Barony of the Bachuil held by McLea / Livingstone – by virtue of the holders being dewars of a saint’s relics or coarbs of the saint. Rather, the treatment of the barony reflects, implicitly, its being the last remnant of the great kingdoms of the Norse-Gaels in the Isles and the coasts, held by the senior descendants of the Scots-Viking kings.

Life
Torcall Mór was, as his grandfather the 30th Chief’s Naval career confirms, born into a family which has always sailed and fought, from the days of longships and berserkers onwards. (His grandfather, Captain Sir Ronnie McCammond of McCammond RN, Mac Iohmair Mór, had served through the Second World War, the Korean Conflict, and the retreat from Empire generally: in which career he had had the not unmixed pleasure of serving under RAdm (as he then was) David Hywel, Lord Builth, father of the formidable Lady Agatha Prothero-Fane.)As the family’s baptismal habits reflected, it was (and is) also a family which spoke the Gaelic as well as English: a fact which influenced the career of Torcall Mór’s father Goraidh ''Mór. The 31st Chief was learned in marine sciences and a supporter of Gaelic education; in consequence, he was a major figure in the establishment and expansion of Lews Castle College in its current form, of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, of the former University Marine Biological Station Millport and the present Scottish Association for Marine Science, and of what is now the University of the Highlands and Islands.Torcall Mór'', following in these longship traditions, is, as well as Chief of his clan, a figure in Hebridean heritage preservation, and a landowner, a naval architect. A noted yachtsman, he is also a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron; the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club; the Royal Irish Yacht Club; and the Royal Ulster Yacht Club; he is currently Commodore of the Royal Hebridean Yacht Club, which was founded by the 25th McCammond of McCammond.He is seated at An Caisteal, on the Isle of Hinba.

Education
Torcall Mór was educated at Gordonstoun and then went on the University of Strathclyde, obtaining the degree of MEng (Naval Architecture with Ocean Engineering). This filial pursuit of the family’s traditional seafaring character was not unallied to the prospect, since made manifest, of offshore gas and petroleum deposits in the Isles, just off the lands of the Clan McCammond. The McCammond has created the Laird’s Trust to ensure that the benefits ensuing are held and disbursed for the benefit of the clan and all clansmen and clanswomen.

Marriage and family
The McCammond married, in 1988, Aileas Cairistìona, daughter of Sir Cailean MacLeòid and Fionnghal (Fiona), Lady MacLeod. They have three sons: Torold Ollamh, the Younger of Kilcassan and Tordoraid; Goraidh Raghnall; and Ìomhar Mànas.

Career
In pursuit of his primary object, that of being a proper Chief to his clan, The McCammond has concerned himself primarily with land reclamation and restoration; the managed creation of onshore facilities for the energy industry, and the expansion of ports, simultaneously with preservation and conservation and the heritage tourism industry; and improvements in transport and communications in his lands.

He sits on various bodies concerned with Gaelic heritage and bodies interested in marine science, naval architecture, and maritime industry. The McCammond has also served as a non-executive director of Caledonian MacBrayne.

Torcall Mór has also, with Rory, Marquess of Badenoch, acted a Trustee for the Taunton Estate’s interests in the Isle of Avard.

During the Referendum of 2014, he, Rory Badenoch, and the Duke of Taunton doorstepped council housing, including in some of the most deprived and dangerous areas, in support of ‘No’, with surprising success. (Cannily, they sent staff and servants to do the same in middle-class areas, countering the SNP’s shortbread-tin campaign by presenting, quite successfully, the sentimental suburbs with the rural ‘voice o’ the fowk’.)

Ancestry
Torcall Mór is the 32nd McCammond of McCammond in direct descent from Amund mhic Ivar. What is in Scots law his feudal barony, of Kilcassan and Tordoraid, in fact precedes feudalism; his lineage is as his Gaelic, ex officio, bye-names suggest: Mac mhic Àmond, Mac mhic Iomhair nam Eilean, The Ivarson of the Isles, Sìol (Àmond Mhic) Ímhair, Mac Iohmair Mór, Fitheach Dubh.

Titles and styles
McCammond of McCammond is styled as The McCammond. As a Scots feudal baron, he may properly be styled also as Torquil McCammond of Kilcassan and Tordoraid; he is likelier to be referred to and to answer to ‘the Black Raven’, The Ivarson, or Mac mhic Àmond, Mac mhic Iomhair nam Eilean,  or Mac Iohmair Mór.

Chapeau / Cap of Maintenance
Erminois doubled vairy of Sable and Or (this is a unique grant, or, rather, a recognition of the unique status of the The McCammond, being unprecedented in Scots heraldry but with clear affinities to the ancient chapeaus of the untitled nobility of the ‘Foreigners’ Isles’, which were Gules doubled Ermines).

Crest
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">A raven proper overt, charged upon the wing with the Red Hand of Ulster

Escutcheon
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">Quarterly: 1st grand quarter, quarterly, 1st quarter  Argent a raven proper the Red Hand of Ulster in sinister chief; 2nd Or a lymphad Sable sailed Gules, flagged Gules and Azure, and bannered Azure; 3rd Or per fess barry and wavy Azure and Argent a sea-rock proper issuant a salmon Argent naiant in base; 4th Azure a double tressure flory-counterflory Argent a lion rampant langued and armed Gules of the second; 2nd grand quarter, quarterly, 1st quarter Azure three salmon naiant palewise Argent the centre charge contourne; 2nd Or in chief a lymphad Sable sailed Gules, flagged Gules and Azure, and bannered Azure in base barry and wavy Azure and Argent; 3rd Argent in chief a dexter arm couped Gules holding a Celtic cross gules in base barry and wavy Vert and Argent; 4th Or a fess Gules three Red Hands of Ulster two and one; 3rd grand quarter, quarterly, 1st quarter Gules a lion rampant Argent langued and armed Azure; 2nd Or a lymphad Sable sailed Gules, flagged Gules and Azure, and bannered Azure a closed hand Gules fess-wise grasping a dagger of the same palewise its point in base in sinister chief; 3rd per pale Gules and Or six bendlets sinister countercharged; 4th Gules a tower Or a chief Argent; 4th grand quarter, quarterly, 1st quarter per fess Argent and Vert in chief a Red Hand of Ulster dexter and a dagger palewise erect of the second sinister in base a salmon proper naiant a bordure compony gules and argent; 2nd Or a lymphad Sable sailed Gules, flagged Gules and Azure, and bannered Azure a fess chequy Azure and Argent overall; 3rd Or in chief a lymphad Sable sailed Gules, flagged Gules and Azure, and bannered Azure a dagger of the third palewise its point in base in dexter chief a cross crosslet fitchy of the third in sinister chief in base barry and wavy Azure and Argent; 4th Or a chevron Gules two Red Hands of Ulster and a dagger palewise erect of the second three and two.

Supporters
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">Dexter: A raven proper

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in">Sinister: A sea-eagle proper

Mottoes
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal">Am Fitheach Dubh  (Scots Gaelic, ‘The Black Raven’); Is mios’ an t-eagal na ’n cogadh (Scots Gaelic, Fear is worse than fighting ); anciently, Is buaine bladh na saoghal (Scots Gaelic, Fame outlives life ), yet the slogan or war-cry of the McCammonds, and Mas olc am fitheach, chan fheàrr a chomann (Scots Gaelic, If the raven be bad, his company is worse:  the raven’s company of course is the corpses of the fallen in battle)