!SOURCE: "The Morrisons of Skinidin", THE CLAN MACLEOD MAGAZINE, II,
No. 17 (1952), pp. 63-66.
In modern Gaelic the name Morrison is MOIREASDAN, which is just the
English name in a Gaelic dress, but earlier it was MACGILLE MHOIRE (the
son of the servant of Mary), and in middle Gaelic the name appears as
GILLAMURE, now anglicised GILMOUR. Captain Thomas, author of THE
TRADITIONS OF THE MORRISONS, on the authority of Dr. Skene, suggests
that the Morrisons were originally "serfs or tanants" on church lands, but
admits that GILLE MHOIRE became a proper name. At what period that
happened cannot be said, but as the name is Gaelic, and the Morrisons
always regarded themselves as Norse, and not Celtic, GILLE MHOIRE
probably came to be used after their arrival in the Hebrides.
The original home of the Morrisons was at Habost in the Ness district
of Lewis, where their Chief held the office of hereditary judge or brieve.
This office appears to have continued in the family, son succeeding
father, until the beginning of the seventeenth century. The last of the
Morrison judges seems to have been John, who is said to have been killed
at Inverkirkaig in Assynt in Sutherland. His grandson, Donald, born about
1620, became minister of Barvas, Lewis, and the progenitor of a famous
clerical dynasty.
According to tradition, the first of the Morrisons in Skinidin in
Duirinish, Skye, was Donald, who was a son of one of the Morrison
ministers in Lewis. Tradition has it also that he came to Dunvegan as a
doctor and received the tack of Skinidin. In the MacLeod Rent Roll for
1664, he is given as tacksman of Skinidin. He had a son, Kenneth, who is
mentioned by William MacLeod of Hammer in his TREATISE ON SECOND
SIGHT as a man "of good repute with his contemporaries."