Comments on The Glencoe Massacre

Excellent programme, again; very good participants.

In the Glencoe Massacre which was a crime as a betrayal of trust and the fact that Alexander Macdonald had signed the oath of allegiance in time, although he’d been delayed in doing so, and that should have saved him and his clan.Sir John Dalrymple,the Secretary of State had most power in Scotland at this time,and he was determined to teach the Highland chiefs such a lesson as would keep them quiet forever afterwards. He got William to sign “Letters of Fire and Sword” against the Macdonald clan. These letters were usually sent to rebels,who were hunted down until they were slain or taken prisoners.He had not told William that the chief had taken the oath.This became the “Massacre of Glencoe”,one of the most frightful crimes in the history of Scotland.Instead of helping William,as Dalrymple had intended, it made his enemies more bitter against him,though of course,William may not have thought thatthe “letters of fire and sword”would be carried out in such a cruel and treacherous way.I thought your respective speakers were all equally excellent and made the program a superb example of oral history. Episodes like this from the past history of these islands should be known about.A case of the state betraying its own citizens.William invaded England to prevent a Catholic alliance between England and France,hencethe Glorious Revolution.He wanted to make war on France.Scotland’s job was to keep quiet and to that end its civil and military authorities had to manage it if they wanted to benefit in terms of their careers.

A wonderfully informative program. My grandmother (Christina MacDonald Sharpe) was the last MacDonald to be buried on the Isle of St Munda in Loch Linnhe in 1972. I took my mother's ashes there in 1990. Perhaps people interested in Glencoe would like to know that there is a current Glencoe Appeal to save the burial island from being commercially exploited. Glencoe Heritage Trust set up by my cousin, Alastair MacDonald, a former crofter and deer stalker, who still lives in the village. Glencoe is truly a magical place

Many thanks for a truly informative programme on Glencoe. I have long been interested in this since first reading John Prebble's trilogy; Glencoe, Culloden and The Highland Clearances and your efforts to 'tease out' the finer contextual details of the event really helped improve my understanding. Have any of your guests written on the subject?

What has happened to the past tense? Virtually all of today's account of the events surrounding 'Glencoe' have been in the present tense: "Then William does this" instead of "Then William did this." A lamentable loss in so much of today's story telling is the use of past tenses.