THE OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER OF T H E C L A N The Defender K I N C A I D ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL THE DEFENDER I S S U E 9 7 – A U G 2 0 1 9 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: The Chief’s Column — Madam Arabella Kincaid of Kincaid Chief’s Column 2- continued 5 Fellow Kincaids, Kinsfolk, Friends, Biography of 6- What a wonderful time we all had at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Madam Arabella 7 Games last month! For those of us who were able to be a part of our Kincaid Gath- President’s ering we had a most memorable and enjoyable few days. For those who weren’t Message able to come I hope that you will be able to get a flavour of all that went on through this special edition of The Defender. None of this could have happened without Rev. John Kinkead 8 Gathering Sum- hours and hours of time lovingly given by many to bring the seed of an idea of a mary Gathering in 2019 into the full bloom of a reality. And the full bloom of reality it was! Greetings from 8 My particular thanks go to President David and Barbara for supporting and the Communica- tions Director coming in behind the idea from start to finish. To Hugh Kincaid and James Brisbin who organized/hosted the Gathering and transported me all over the place from Clan Gathering 9- Airport to Games site and dinners etc. with such comfort and east. To Eva Knight Photo Gallery 14 and Hugh and Connie for their extraordinary hospitality to me and my sons for the duration of the Games. To Lance and Donna for their tireless and gracious presence Greeting from 15 the whole way through, hosting at the tent and being our Chief media people! Jim the Membership Director and Charlene for all their time in the tent setting up, welcoming and generally keep- Highland Games ing the ‘ship afloat’! Hugh (again!) for organising the whole of the Gala dinner com- Fergus Scottish 16 plete with the most beautiful Celtic music to entertain and Beverley for making up Games and for so generously gifting the most sumptuous gift packs for every family pre- sent! Brother John for his prayers and quiet support and just being game on for tak- Board Members 17 & Commissioners ing part, Kathi for ensuring we all knew who each other were with the very smart lanyards! To be honest I want to be able to give a huge thank you to every single THIS I’LL DE- 18 person who gave out a water bottle, smiled and welcomed, hosted at the tent, and FEND UPDATE 19 in short came and were part of not only Clan Kincaid but more to the point ‘Team & Wee Shopper Kincaid’! Order Form Wee Shopper 20 Thank you All! What a joy it was! Yours aye, Arabella. P A G E 2 Please enjoy the following transcription of the speech given by Madam Arabella at the Clan Kincaid Gala this past July. - Emily Silversparre, CKAI Communication Director Good evening! I had been thinking about what to say and how long I should aim to make my offering when I bumped into a very helpful piece which said this: Pythagoras theorem: 24 words The Lords Prayer: 66 words 10 Commandments: 179 words The Declaration of Independence: 1,300 words US Government regulations on the sale of cabbage: 26,911 words So it was swiftly and reassuringly reminded that quantity does not necessarily produce quality! `I have, as I have said before, amongst my possessions a little blue index card box filled with 85 pieces of paper. I am fortunate enough to have inherited some lovely family pieces - one or two paintings of an- cestors, some old leather-bound ledgers, and so forth, but this little box is one of my favourites. My Grandmother, Madam Heather, created it in the days before computers. She researched her Kincaid his- tory and wrote on each piece of paper a name, dates and a little information about each person. It sits on a shelf in our sitting room alongside various clan and Scottish history books and I enjoy dipping in eve- ry now and again. I always seem to find someone or something new and on this occasion it has given me the basis for my few words tonight. As we gather for our Clan Kincaid Gala dinner here in the Smokey Mountains we come together, not only as a Clan, but as a family group of relations enjoying and celebrating our shared history and her- itage. There is much to celebrate! Each one of us here that carries Kincaid blood in our veins will have to some degree a traceable Kincaid line in our ancestry that will lead us back to Scotland, the land of our forefathers, and since we are one of the smaller Clans we will all be related, however closely or distantly, which is quite a thought. I wonder if any of you have made a new connection this weekend? Each and every one of us is of course a completely unique individual and yet together part of a visible structure, not a physical building but something more profound, deeper, timeless and actually everlasting. And then I thought of a patchwork quilt like this made up of many pieces of material (Thank you Connie!). Each is lovely in their own right, but together they spread and spread out to make something beautiful and unique, each piece contributing, building on the one before, not covering it up or trying to be better but simply being. Standing alongside each other, bring their own offering and shape and colour, which is how I see our Clan today. We are all the product of those Kincaids who have gone before. We don’t just stand alone but like it or not, we are part of a much, much bigger picture. I have picked 3 cards from different centuries so that we could look at some Kincaids whose lives have been the ‘Living Stones’ in the building of the structure of Clan Kincaid. We can try to look at and imagine what life would have actually been like for them. We have little historical information to draw on in the early days of Kincaid being recognised as a Clan (the internet is full of information, and not all accurate! One website that said “The current Chief ….), but we do know it was a time of major strife in general in Scotland, which one can only imagine will mean it won’t all have been singing ballads in peaceful times! THE DEFENDER P A G E 3 So to the blue box. An initial shuffle through and I quickly chose first Robert de Kincade or as he is listed in my blue box: Robert de Kincade of Craiglockhart. He lived from 1467-1494 I chose Robert because: A—as far as I am aware no Kincaids had yet left Scotland during his lifetime, so he is a man we can look back to as one of the early pieces in the patchwork, a family man and a common ances- tor living in the 1400s. B- He had 3 sons, so I am rather hoping that he could be a forebear of some of our num- ber tonight. And if not at least some of kindred around the world today. He lived obviously at Craiglockhart and this property remained in the family for around 150 years before this branch rather disgraced themselves and lost Craiglockhart. Today it is a suburb of Edinburgh. The remains of the old tower are still standing in the garden of Craiglockhart College, which is part of Edinburgh University. In the late 1400s when the first Kincaids lived there, Edinburgh would have been a small town of perhaps less than 10,000 people. Brigadier Bill Kincaid says “the well-to-do were living in large houses or estates outside the city. It was primarily a city of royalty and government, protected by the mighty castle”. Robert was at Craiglockart in the early golden days of Kincaids and not far from Kincaid House itself. In this place and during his time had 3 sons by the names of Patrick, David and Robert. What would the life of this Kincaid who has gone be- fore us have been? We don’t have detailed information about his life despite the fact he is mentioned many times in searches but what we do know is that he increased his landholdings and acquired land in Stirlingshire and in the Lennox country. By looking at what was going in in Edinburgh at the time we can guess that he would have also been involved in one or more of the growing business opportunities. He and his family would have spoken a language called Middle Scots, being the language of Lowland Scot- land between 1450 and the 1700s rather than Gaelic which was primarily the language of the Highlands. Edin- burgh was positively booming, and in the 1400s was home to around 50% of the Scottish wool industry, Web- sters, Wrights and Masons, Furriers and Tailors and Hammermen (Smiths) were all becoming more organised in- dustries and all became incorporated in the 1400s. As we can see business in Edinburgh is blooming and we can only imagine that Robert Kincade must have been making the most of the times and accumulating wealth. We can assume life would have been fairly comfortable and prosperous and from there on despite some ups and downs the family territories expanded in the 15th and 16th century and the Kincaids added estates around Edin- burgh.