Mr Lachlan: the preacher who had to be dragged from his bedroom

In the old churchyard at Lochcarron, very near the people remembered as the Kishorn dwarfs, lies a former neighbour whose name once needed little explanation in the Highlands. The Reverend Lachlan MacKenzie was known simply as “Mr Lachlan”, and although I occasionally bring guests to this evocative place, I suspect most people travelling the North Coast 500 pass without discovering him. It is a quiet resting place for someone who could draw enormous congregations, particularly once you begin to discover how much uncertainty lay behind the authority he exercised over them.

MacKenzie had arrived in the west as a schoolmaster, first at Applecross and then at Lochcarron, where people were attending his prayer meetings before the Church had licensed him to preach. His evangelical enthusiasm troubled some ministers, but those who gathered to hear him clearly wanted more, and local support helped secure his appointment to Lochcarron in 1782. From there his reputation spread through the Gaelic-speaking Highlands, bringing people to a preacher whose imaginative powers could move a crowd, even though he sometimes struggled to persuade himself that he should stand before one.

On one important communion occasion, the weather became so stormy that he took it as a warning from Providence against preaching and retreated to his bedroom, locking the door and lying there in tears while the congregation waited. Donald Kennedy of Kishorn eventually forced the door open and ordered him to get up, apparently deciding that whatever the heavens intended, leaving everyone outside was not the answer. MacKenzie did emerge, the weather cleared and the service was remembered for years afterwards, although without Kennedy’s intervention there might have been no sermon to remember. I find that encounter rather endearing, with a parishioner having to find a way through the fears of the man upon whom so many others depended.

Other accounts suggest MacKenzie could be equally resourceful in dealing with his neighbours, including a tradition that he used a Gaelic song to reach the formidable Ceit Mhòr after she refused to attend church. He also challenged excessive funeral drinking because of the burden it placed on widows and children, showing a concern for household circumstances alongside the spiritual welfare of his parish. Stories of second sight belong more cautiously within that portrait, revealing how people regarded him without necessarily proving the abilities they attributed to him. Together, these encounters restore something of the personality behind an easily overlooked grave, and in the audio blogcast we spend more time with the people and stories that made Mr Lachlan such a memorable Highland minister.

To learn more, listen to the blogcast or book one of our North Coast Explorer private tours.