Wherever authentic records of tartans are preserved this design
appears, generally as Mac Intyre and Glenorchy, though occasionally
as Glenorchy alone. It seems to have partaken of the nature of a
district tartan, for the locality whence the title is taken was only
partly occupied by the Mac Intyres, who appear never to have attained
the strength of a clan. No Mac Intyre arms are matriculated in the
Lyon Register. They are found, however, in Burke’s _General Armoury_,
and the individual contributing them evidently regarded his family
as a sept of the Mac Donalds. The pattern in the illustration occurs
in the collection of the Highland Society of London (1822), and in
reproductions made in Edinburgh about 1820 from examples of ancient
designs procured in the Highlands near that time. In a collection
formed in 1790 there is a scheme differing very slightly from the
present illustration. Of the antiquity of the name Mac Intyre in Lorn
evidence is furnished by the traditions of a family who “possessed
the farm of Glenoe, in Nether Lorn, from about the year 1300 down to
1810. They were originally foresters of Stewart, Lord Lorn, and were
continued in their possession and employment after the succession of
the Glenorchy and Breadalbane families to this estate, by a marriage
with a co-heiress of the last Lord Lorn of the Stewart family in
the year 1435” (Stewart’s _Highlanders_, third edition, Vol. I. p.
82). General Stewart, writing in 1822, observes: “In like manner the
Athole, Glenorchy, and other colours of different districts were easily
distinguishable.” Doubtless this statement refers to the example here
given, because it is shown in all collections of importance gathered at
that date, when what is now commonly known as the Mac Intyre appears to
have been non-existent.
[Illustration: XIX. MACINTYRE AND GLENORCHY]