Dùthaich Mhic Aoidh Where Is It?

 

Atlas Novus – Blaeu’s Maps

The map here shows the extent of Mackay Country in the early 17th century when it was known as ‘Strathnaverne’.  This is a ‘Blaeu’ map, printed in the Netherlands by Joan Blaeu in 1654. 

 

The key maps and information for the final map were created by Timothy Pont while he was Minister at Dunnet in Caithness between about 1600 till about 1612 – 13.  His brother Zachary was Minister at Bower in Caithness and his sister Margaret, married Alexander Borthuik and lived in Tongue for a time.  [1]

 

 

The Atlas novus was in Latin and Volume V focused on Scotland.  As Chris Fleet of the National Library of Scotland notes in his ‘The history behind the publication of the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland’:

 

“The publication of Volume V of Blaeu’s Atlas novus was the result of over 70 years of cartographic, chorographic and editorial activity, by a dispersed network of people in Scotland and the Low Countries.  Through their combined efforts, dogged by war, poverty, copyright restrictions and only intermittent official support, ‘Scotland became one of the best mapped countries in the world’ (Stone 1989) and the Atlas remains to this day a uniquely significant landmark publication.”[2]

 

 

 

 

[1] NLS website

 

[2] C. Fleet The history behind the publication of the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland National Library website www.nls.uk

 

Mackay Country: Where Is It?

 

 

At the height of Mackay power, Mackay Country stretched from Assynt in the south west and Lairg in the south east to Reay in the modern Caithness, taking in much of the north west.  Map 3a shows the extent in early 1600s while Map 4a shows the extent of Sutherland at that time.  These two maps were drawn by Robert Gordon from Pont’s maps and notes. 

 

Sutherland was a very small place compared to the vast County we think of today.  In the 15th and 16th centuries Sutherland meant the areas which are today know as the civil parishes of Creich, Dornoch, Golspie, Clyne, Loth Rogart and the southern parts of Lairg and Kildonan.  Notice that while Eddrachillis has an individual identity it is clearly mapped as part of the Province of Strathnaver or Dùthaich ‘Ic Aoidh.  This was also remarked upon by Timothy Pont.  Maps 3b and 4b are the Blaeu maps created from the work Robert Gordon sent to Amsterdam.