This Murdoch History section covers .......
 

Linguistics of Murdoch surname   Historical Roots of Murdoch surname   A Brief History of Murdochs   Some Famous Murdochs   Murdoch Coats of Arms   Robert Bruce & The Ravens   Tartan

Foreword

This web site doesn't set out to be in any way definative. In many ways it's simply a collection of information and facts which I've accumulated on the subject. I've tried to add background and deduce some meaning - so there's a degree of personal opinion. Thanks to many people for their contributions. Quite honestly I think you need considerable wisdom to make any clear sense of it all!

Early history is mythology. The Celts were literate but even well into Christian times believed it was a sin to commit important knowledge to writing - their tradition was oral. But equally we should be wary of documented history - it is often biased and little more than myth itself.

We must also be careful not to romanticise hard and brutal times. The warrior ethos and loyalty to family, tribe and leader is widespread - from Zululand to Japan - from New Zealand to Sicily. We're unique because of the Celtic Gaelic culture and heritage not because of a clan type social structure. Mankind has seen such social orders a thousand times before - but there have only been one Gaels.

But time passes - many Murdochs, inhabitants of Galloway would have ceased to speak Gaelic and not have lived as Clansmen from around the 16thC. By around 1600 some moved to Ulster in the Plantation so by then these Murdochs must have been suitable candidates to act as a Protestant buffer against their Gael cousins.

As for the Highlands, few Scots today have a rose-tinted view of pre-1800 Highland life. It was a hard and brutal subsistence lifestyle. The Chiefs, many Anglo-Norman in origin who slipped into the old Celtic mould easily, ruled their fuedal subjects absolutely - their was no appeal to their justice. No doubt, as in all times, there were fair and decent men among them. Our proud Gael forefathers followed their Lords and Masters with absolute loyalty - finally into no hope, lost cause wars and then on to transport ships to be replaced by Cheviot sheep in the Clearances!
 

Highlanders lived an utterly squalid existence with high child mortality from their smoke filled cottages called black houses and many fair minded people thought the Highlander's predicament so dreadful that Clearances were a blessing! The cottage shown here has chimneys - an 18thC one would have had a hole in the roof.

So we must avoid confusing today's Clan pageantry, spectacle and Victorian dress with the harsh reality for our ancestors. While such have their rightful place in keeping alive kinship and aspects of Gaelic Culture we shouldn't confuse this with historical reality. It's a worthwhile observation that the group of today's Scots who has least time for Clans, Chiefs, the old social order etc. are Scotland's native Gaelic speakers - Clearances and Crofter's Rights Wars have seen to that!

Jim Murdoch, Webmaster