Clan Gatherings
It is a long time since clansmen were summoned by a fiery cross to fight for their chief. Nowadays we send out electronic invitations to members to gather for the more peaceful purposes of celebrating kinship, exploring the history of the Lamont Clan through people and places, sharing in Scottish traditions, and enjoying aspects of Scottish culture.
Gathering 2025
The Gathering will be held in Dunoon from Thursday 21 to Sunday 24 August 2025 in Dunoon in celebration of the 130th Anniversary of the Society.
Highlights of past Gatherings
Ascog Castle
Visits to Historic Places
Toward Castle
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Visited in 2023, the remains of Ascog Castle lie on the western edge of Loch Ascog. It is a pleasant walk away along a track off the road between Kames and Portavadie. It was the second of the Lamont strongholds to fall to the Campbells in 1646. It is such a beautiful and peaceful place, the treachery and slaughter seem all the more dreadful.
Much less remains of Ascog Castle than of Toward
Not to be confused with the nearby Castle Toward, a 19th century Neo-Gothic building, Toward Castle was one of the two Lamont strongholds besieged and sacked by the Campbells in 1646 in a ferocious retaliation for a previous Lamont ravaging of Campbell territory. Although the terms of the Lamont's subsequent surrender of Ascog Castle granted them safe passage, the Lamonts were murdered in an act of unpardonable treachery which became know as the Dunoon Massacre.
Visits to sites of historical significance are a central feature of our Gatherings. Being in the very places where our ancestors lived, worked and all too often fought can take you beyond an academic interest in the past and into a more imaginative sense of connection with it.
Inverchaolain Church
The current Inverchaolain Church building dates from 1912 and is now the fourth incarnation. The church closed in 1990 and is now in private hands and is being renovated as a dwelling house.
Luckily, the new owners were on site during our 2023 visit and so we were able to see the church still in its original state.
Kilmun Church
At the War Memorial in Inverchaolain kirkyard, remembering those fallen in conflicts over the years
At the Lamont Memorial in Dunoon, commemorating the clansfolk massacred in 1646.
Remembrance
The Inverhooley Ceilidh Band
Entertainment
Traditional activities
Clanadonia
A Dunoon based band that gets our feet tapping and entices us to take the floor for a country dance, the Inverhooley Ceilidh Band is the go-to group for ceilidhs, dances and concerts and the Cowal Gathering. It entertained us at both our 2022 and 2023 Ceilidhs.
You can listen to it here.
Photo by kind permission of the Inverhooley Ceilidh Band
Photo by kind permission of the Clanadonia Band
A pulsing, blood-stirring performance on pipes and drums, full of passion and raw energy blew us away at the 2022 Ceilidh. Clanadonia's music explodes out of a tribal past and takes you over. Seemingly savage and wild, it is played with disciplined precision .
You can listen to it here.
Listen here to a waulking song performed in an authentic setting at the Auchindrain township, a unique folk museum near Inverary on Loch Fyne.
Singers from the former Greenock Gaelic choir performing a waulking song. at a Fair in Dunoon during our 2022 Gathering. These very rhythmic songs accompanied the part of the the process of preparing tweed cloth when it was beaten on a hard surface by a group of women to soften and shrink it.
The point of the band's name will escape those who are not familiar with contemporary Scottish idiom or of the pronunciation of Inverchaolain, where our Society's home is located. One of the meanings of hooley or hoolie is a party, not some polite sherry party but a particularly lively and noisy one with music and dancing. When you know that Inverchaolain is pronounced 'Inver-hoolin', you'll get the point. (And since you probably want to ask, the other meaning is an extremely high wind, as in It's blowin a hoolie out there.)
Come to a Gathering and there's no saying
what you'll learn!
Barbecue at the Manse 2023
Getting together
A major feature of our Gatherings is getting together, enjoying the company of old friends and making new ones, all of us connected by shared lines stretching back into the mists of time. Whether on an outing to an historic place, at a formal dinner and ceilidh, enjoying home-made soup and sandwiches in Kilfinan village hall or chilling out together in the tranquil surroundings of the Inverchaolain Manse, we connect in kinship in the places in which our common ancestors lived.
Garden Party at the Manse 2022
Visit to Toward Castle 2017
At a viewpoint near Tighnabruaich in 2022..... and the stunning view of the Kyles of Bute
