Clan Muir

Clan Muir is a Scottish clan that is armigerous. Per certain sources, holders of the surname Muir (also appearing as Mure and Moore), of Ayrshire, have been noted as a possible sept of Clan Boyd, though this is not clearly identified to a reliable resource. A spelling variation More/Moore is a sept of Clan Leslie in Aberdeenshire, and, having genetic proof of Muirs in Aberdeenshire, may have roots in the Mure/Muir line of southwest Scotland.

However, there are other instances in which links to the Mure/Muir line of southwest Scotland cannot be confirmed. The surname Moir, for example, is a sept of Clan Gordon in the highlands, but is not part of this same group of Mure/Muir/Moore. A single family, the Mores/Moores of Drumcork, are septs of Clan Grant, but there is no evidence of a connection to the Mure/Muir line. Some also project Muir may be a sept of Clan Campbell, though even Clan Campbell considers this unlikely.

All said, however, a convincing argument has been made that there actually was no Clan Muir prior to the early 19th century; perhaps even the early 20th century. If it came about in the early 19th century, it may have done so solely as part of a revival of Scots nationalism in the wake of the visit to Scotland of King George IV, in 1822; was, in part, courtesy of that same sense of nationalism revived in the written works of Sir Walter Scott; and was developed around the history of the Mure/Muir lines of Ayrshire and Renfrewshire. In fact, in the earliest history of the Mure/Muir line, in Historie and Descent of the House of Rowallane, Sir William Mure (1594-1657) makes no reference, whatsoever, to a clan system for the Mure/Muir family. While the book was not published until 1825, the written work itself was produced prior to Sir William Mure's death in 1657. There is no written history of the Muir line known to exist prior to the publication of this work. Further, in the second oldest work encompassing a significant amount of material regarding the Mure line from Caldwell, Selections from the Family Papers Preserved at Caldwell (1854), by George Jardine (1754-1827) and William Mure (1799-1860), there is also no reference to the Mure/Muir lines being part of the clan system.