Clan Morrison
http://www.geocities.com/ammonoe/morrison.html

Badge:

A castle rising from the sea, with a hand holding a dagger emerging from it

Motto:

"Dun Eistein" (Hugh's Castle)
the name of the ancient stronghold of the brieves in the Butt of Lewis, and "Teaghlach Phabbay"(the family of Pabbay), from whom the current chiefs, the Morrisons of Ruchdi, descend. Pabbay is a small island in the Sound of Harris, between Harris and North Uist.

Septs:

Gilmore, Judge and Brieve

Clan Morrison traces its lineage back nearly 800 years to Gilmhoire, son of Olaf the Black and Lauon, a Scottish noblewoman from Kintyre. Gilmhoire was born between 1214 and 1216. In 1216 Olaf, Lauon and Gilmhoire were shipwrecked when Olaf’s Viking ship foundered off the Isle of Lewis. Legend has it that the three managed to float ashore on a piece of driftwood, which, because of this incident, has been adopted as the plant badge of the clan.

Lauon was Olaf’s second wife, his first bride having been her cousin German. This close relationship, which violated the church law of the day, eventually caused Bishop Reginald of the Isles to nullify the marriage, branding Gilmhoire as illegitimate. Olaf the Black became King of Man and the Isles in 1226. His third wife, Christiana, daughter of Ferquhar, the Earl of Ross, bore him another son, Leod, the progenitor of the Clan MacLeod.

Gilmhoire married the last heiress of the Clan Igaa (or Gow). She held the Castle of Pabbay in Harris. From this union came the Clan Morrison. Gilmhoire is the Gaelic equivalent of Maurice or Mourice. The sons of Gilmhoire, or Mourice, became the Morrisons as fashions of English spelling changed over time.

There were two distinct branches of the Morrison Clan. One became the hereditary keepers of the Castle of Pabbay and eventually held the castle for the MacLeods, to whom they were hereditary armorers. The other branch, which was the chiefly line, settled in the district of Ness in north Lewis and built the stronghold of Dun Eistein (Hugh’s Castle), which became the war cry of the clan, "Dun Eistein!"

After the dissolution of the Lordship of the Isles in 1493, life in the Hebrides, including Lewis, became much more turbulent and violent. At the end of a series of inter-clan struggles extending back for more than 100 years, the Chief of the Clan Morrison and his six closest male relatives were murdered by the Chief of the MacLeods, who obtained letters of fire and sword against the Morrisons from King James VI. The Clan Morrison was thus broken, and remained so for more than 300 years.

In 1909, the Clan Morrison Society was founded in Scotland with the express aim of finding the person with the best hereditary claim to the chiefship and reconstituting Clan Morrison under his leadership. In 1965 this goal was finally attained when Dr. John Morrison of Ruchdi was elected chief at a clan gathering held in Scotland. Dr. John Morrison has since been succeeded by his son, Dr. Iain Morrison of Ruchdi, the present chief, who traces his ancestry back through 14 generations to the 16th Century and the Morrisons of Harris, the keepers of Pabbay.