Maclean Family
In a Gaelic MS. of 1450, containing genealogies of several Highland families, and published with an English translation in The Transactions of the Iona Club, an ancestor of the Macleans is also mentioned as Gilleoin, son of Macrath (Gilleain me Icrait). This helps to confirm the tradition mentioned below, that the Macraes, Mackenzies, and Macleans were of the same ancestry, but it is not easy to make anything satisfactory out of those old genealogies.
See Traditional Origin of the Clan Macrae
Tradition relates that the Macraes came originally from Ireland, and were of common ancestry with the Mackenzies and the Macleans, and it is said that a company of them fought at the battle of Largs in 1263, under the leadership of Colin Fitzgerald, the reputed progenitor of the Mackenzies of Kintail. The Fitzgerald origin of the Mackenzies is now discredited by Scotch historians; but, whatever their origin may have been, it is extremely probable that the Macraes were in some way connected with the same stock, as a strong friendship and alliance existed between the two clans from early traditional times, and continued without intermission so long as the Mackenzies held the ancestral lands of Kintail. The Macraes who settled in Kintail are said to have lived originally at Clunes, on the Lordship of Lovat, near the southern shore of the Beauly Firth, where the site on which stood the house of their chief is still pointed out. So far as the date to which these traditions refer can be fixed, this would be about the middle of the thirteenth century. It is also said that the name was known in Glenurquhart in the twelfth century, which is an earlier date than can well be assigned to any traditions that have come down to us with regard to the settlement at Clunes, but there appear to be no existing traditions connecting the origin of the Macraes of Kintail with the district of Glenurquhart. There are, however, many traditions connecting them with the district of Clunes, and explaining the cause of the migration to Kintail.