Scottish Clan Book - Gunn

With the motto of ‘Either peace of war’ and crest of a hand wielding a sword, the Gunns trace a proud descent from an early thirteen century Norse King of Man and the Isles.

His second son Gunni, with the name meaning ‘war’, subsequently settled in Scotland and, marrying a sister of Harald, Jarl of Orkney, acquired lands in Caithness before the clan acquired the lands of Kildonan in Sutherland in the fifteenth century.

Flourishing in their new domains, they nevertheless were embroiled in vicious feuds with rival clans, particularly their sworn enemies the Keiths.

During the Rising of 1745, the Gunns came out in support of the Hanoverians, rather than Bonnie Prince Charlie, only for many of the name to be forced off their lands in the early nineteenth century as a result of the Highland Clearances that replaced people with sheep.

Chronicled here is the dramatic saga of the Gunns.