As published in "The Weekly Scotsman", Thursday, April 14, 1966 - written by Allan DOUGLAS.

The Hannays.

This week we visit the South-western district of Galloway-a district which has Highlands of its own. "Bonnie Gallowa`" also has flat grazing lands in Wigtownshire called "The Machers," once the home of a powerful clan-like family-the Hannays (also spelled Hanna, Hannah, and Ahannay). The family later became prominent in Kirkcudbrightshire (pronounced "Kir-coo-bree-shire") as well as in other parts of Scotland and Ulster. Machers is a corruption of a Gaelic word "machair", meaning pasture. Not only this word, but other place names throughout the area offer proof that Gaelic was once the language of the South-west.
Galloway itself points to a Gaelic word "Gall" which means stranger or foreigner (also used by Highlanders to describe Lowlands Scots). This area has so many unusual "Mac" surnames it is often called the Land of the Stranger Mac`s.
Hannays are on record in the County of Wigtown from at least 1296 when one Gilbert de Hannethe rendered homage to Edward I in the Ragman Roll.
The family`s homelands of Sorbie contains the picturesque Sorbie Castle, and members of the world-wide Clan Hannay Society have been active in raising funds for its preservation. It is probable that the Hannays held Sorbie by 1304. The damask industry used to be prominent in the Sorbie vicinity until it colapsed because of greater industrialisation in other areas.
Visitors wishing to tour the old Hannay lands will likely use Wigtown as their centre. It is approximatelly six miles north of Sorbie.

DOCUMENTED

Odo Hannay was the first known owner of Sorbie, and his death probably occurred before 1485. From Odo, the Hannays can be traced in unbroken line; and the family is one of Scotland`s best documented. From Sorbie sprang the Hannays of Mochrum, Grennan, Baldoon, Knockglass, and Kirkdale in Galloway, and Kingsmuir in Fife: Newry, Ballybay in Northern Ireland: Hannastown. Pennsylvania and Lexington, Virginia,USA,; and many others in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
South of Sorbie is the village of Whithorn (pronounced "whit-horn") and farther along the same route is Isle of Whithorn. Both have associations with St. Ninian, a Romano-Briton, who in 396 brought Christianity to Scotland (167 years before St. Columbia landed on Iona).
Four miles from Whithorn is St. Ninian`s Cave, which is said to have been a place of Christian pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. Crosses can still be seen on its rocks and stones. It was at Whithorn, Scotland`s "Cradle of Christianity," that Fynlaus Ahanna served as Canon in 1390. He was not the first, the last, nor the most famous Hannay clerick, however, for the Hannays of Sorbie have given many distinguished men to the church (over 30 to the Presbyterian Church in America alone).
Perhaps the most famous Hannay churchman was James Hannay (who died in 1661), appointed by King Charles I in 1634 as Dean of St. Giles` Edinburgh. When all ministers were instructed to use William Laud`s Episcopal Service Book, Dean Hannay began to read it - 1634 - as Dean of St. Giles`,. The date was July 23, 1637 - the day of the famous Jenny Geddes Riot.

BLACK MASS

"Out! Out!" cried Jenny.
Does the false loon mean to say his black mass at my lug?".
And with that, Jenny threw her stool at Dean Hannay`s head, missing him (according to some accounts) only by inches.
This incident is commemorated inside the High Kirk by a plaque which reads: "To James Hannay, D.D. Dean of this Cathedral, 1634-39. He was the first and the last who read the Service Book in this Church.
Most Hannays of this period were ardent reformers and those of the family who were members of the Presbyterv of Kirkcudbright forwarded to the General Assembly in Edinburgh a strongly worded protest against the Service Book`s use in Scottish churches.
Another famous descendant of Sorbie (through the Kirkdale line) was Patrick Hannay, soldier-poet, who reportedly fought in the service of the Queen of Bohemia. He went to James`s VI`s Court in London with his cousin, Robert Hannay of Boghouse, Mochrum. Patrick was a grandson of Donald Hannay of Sorbie, who had fought in the ill-fated Scottish Army of James IV at Flodden in 1513.
The soldier-poet became a personal favorite of Queen Anne, and his "Two Elegies on the Death of Queen Anne" are among his best-known works.
Like the clans of the North, the Hannays had their feuds with the Murrays in the early 1600s many of the Sorbie lands were lost in debts. Upon the death about 1640 of John Hannay of Sorbie, the estate passed to the Stewart of Garlies.
Kirkdale, located in Kirkcudbrightshire (on the road between Gatehouse of Fleet and Creetown) was once a property of the Murrays but was purchased by Alexander Hannay in 1532. In a fight at the Curves of Cree with the Murrays in 1610 Patrick Hannay, younger, of Kirkdale, was killed.
Baldoon was an old Dunbar property before it passed to the Hannays. It is immediatelly south of Wigtown and today a farm still called Baldoon Mains. A nearby beach is called Baldoon Sands.
Grennan, in the Parish of Stoneykirk, was a Hannay property from about 1612. It lies on high ground above Glenluce Bay.