Welcome to Seanachaidh’s Notes

by Richard McBain of McBain, 23rd Chief of the Clan MacBean

In the old Highland households, every chief had his piper, and every chief had his seanachaidh (say it SHEN-ach-ee): the keeper of the clan’s memory. Half poet and half historian, the seanachaidh knew the genealogy of the chief’s house by heart, kept the clan’s stories and records, advised the chief, and at the inauguration of a new chief stood before the people and proclaimed his descent. Sir Fitzroy Maclean called the seanachaidh “the very essence of the clan’s spirit.”

There is no record of a seanachaidh to the chiefs of Clan MacBean in the surviving histories, though there must surely have been one. My father and I agreed that the office should be revived, and on 6 February 2021, while I was serving as Acting Chief for him, I appointed Philip Beddows as our Seanachaidh. I first asked the Lord Lyon’s office how such an appointment should be made; their answer was that it is a matter for the chief and his clan.

In 2024 I confirmed the appointment by a formal Deed of Appointment, dated 9 February, my grandfather Hughston’s birthday. In it I recorded that Philip had acted as Seanachaidh “in the presence of gathered members of my Clan, The Lord Lyon King of Arms and guests and Chiefs from other clans of Clan Chattan” at my inauguration, and granted him “my full support and authority to represent me as my Seanachaidh.” The appointment is for life.

These pages are Philip’s. Before you read them, I want you to know what he has already given our clan.

What Philip has given the clan

• He rediscovered a lost tartan. Starting from an old blanket in his own family, Philip spent two years tracking down the MacBean of Tomatin tartan, until a matching sample was found in the vaults of the Inverness Museum. It is now one of our five official tartans.
• He set our tartans in order. With the tartan historian Lt. Col. Peter MacDonald, he untangled ten registered MacBean and McBain tartans down to four true ones, and then designed the fifth, the MacBean Hunting, the first new clan tartan in more than two hundred years. It was the last project my father and I shared.
• He corrected the line of our chiefs. Working from old testaments with David Geddes and Allan MacBain, he showed that Major Gillies Mòr MacBean, killed at Culloden in 1746, was our 14th Chief, and he has written the corrected genealogy from Bean Mòr in the 13th century to the present day.
• He proclaimed a new chief. When my father died on 7 March 2022, it was Philip who wrote the next day confirming my succession as 23rd Chief. On 6 August 2022, at the McBain Memorial Park, he was master of ceremonies at my inauguration, recited my genealogy before the clan in Gaelic and in English, and presented me with the cromach carved with our war cry, Kinchyle.
• He helped build a memorial. He was one of the small team on both sides of the Atlantic who brought the Alan Bean Memorial and that whole August weekend to life.
• He keeps finding our history. From presenting Alan Bean’s “Clan MacBean Arrives on the Moon” to the Caledonian Club in London, to uncovering the buried gravestone of Gillies McBean of Wester Drakies in Inverness, Philip’s articles have filled the pages of the Register for years.

As it happens, Philip and I are kinsmen, eleventh cousins once removed.

What you will find here

Seanachaidh’s Notes is where Philip shares his research: the stories behind our chiefs and their lands, our tartans and heraldry, the places in Scotland where our history happened, and new discoveries as they come to light. We begin with ten of his articles, written for The Clan MacBean Register and for Touch Not, the magazine of the Clan Chattan Association, starting with his own account of the role of the Seanachaidh.

Philip serves as Seanachaidh to the Chief, and these notes are his to write as his research leads him. Questions from members about family history and the clan are answered by the officers and genealogists of the Clan MacBean association.

Richard McBain of McBain