in 1700 and owned it until 1904 when it was sold by the heirs of Major General Sir John Carstairs McNeill. According to Moncreiffe, there is reason to believe that historically this branch was superior to the current chiefs of the Clan MacNeil. There is even a school of thought that there is no relation at all between this branch of McNeills to that of Barra. However, according to a 1962 decree by the Lord Lyon, the chiefs of MacNeil of Barra are chiefs of the whole name of MacNeil by Scots law until such time as the MacNeils of Colonsay acquire a Chief of their own. The last Clan Chief of the Clan McNeill of Colonsay was Alexander Malcolm McNeill who was born in New Zealand in 1899 and Matriculated his Arms in 1972. He held the title until his death in 1988. His son John Duncan McNeill became Head of the Clan on his father's death but did not apply to matriculate his own Arms. Duncan's eldest daughter, Deborah Jane McNeill, has petitioned the Lord Lyon to become the next Clan Chief of the Clan McNeill of Colonsay. Modern Clan Macneil The 18th and 19th centuries saw severe hardship to Clan MacNeil clansfolk. During this era there was mass clearance from Barra to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. During the chiefship of Colonel Roderick (c.1755–1822) Barra suffered its first mass clearances. Ironically the chief described himself as a melieuratier (an "improver"). One mass exodus of Barra folk was led by Gilleonan, elder son of the chief. This consisted of 370 Catholic Barra folk (about 75 families in total) who emigrated in August to Pictou, Nova Scotia. In 1838, after going broke, Colonel Roderick's son and heir, Lieutenant General Roderick MacNeil of Barra, sold Barra to Colonel Gordon of Cluny. When Roderick died in 1863 the chiefship passed to a cousin (descendant of Gilleonan) who had emigrated during the mass emigrations to Canada in 1802. Robert Lister MacNeil was born in 1889. An American citizen and a trained architect, he succeeded the chiefship of Clan MacNeil in 1915. In 1937 he was able to purchase Barra and the ruinous Kisimul Castle largely using the money from his second wife. Immediately he began work restoring the castle, aided in part by funds from a British Government grant. By his death in 1970 he had completed the restoration