Clan societies in UK

[Jock Scot]

My wife and I have been and still are, friends of the fairly recent head of the North American Clan MacLeod Society(I think I have the title correct). He and his wife have been our friends for too many years to count and stay with us for a few days when they are"over". I think that they, with other MacLeods come over to Skye to hold their "Clan Gathering" at Dunvegan every five years. They are always amazed that the "British MacLeods" are rarely seen in numbers. We are always kindly invited to attend and to accompany them, but the event holds no interest for us. Looking at their itinerary, it is always way so over the top for us so we politely decline. The reason we give is that Dunvegan is not the same as it was when Chief John------who was a tad more than an acquaintance to us----- was about and besides, the salmon may be running!

Many times over the years we have discussed with them the doings of the various Macleod societies around the world and there is no doubt about it, they, the North American Clan society, put a lot of time, effort and money into doing good things, particularly for MacLeods. They cannot understand why the UK Clan Society is so undersubscribed and seemingly disinterested and always has been. After much discussion over many years and many drams we have come to the conclusion that the Scottish(British) just do things in their more low key way or, in modern parlance "less in your face" way.

I think the same holds for the differences between the North American(Canada and USA) way and the Native Scottish way. There is no doubt in my mind that the two sides of the Atlantic see and do things very, very differently, as this website demonstrates almost daily.