Clan Kennedy Castle Ayrshire Scotland

Tour Scotland Winter travel video of Culzean Castle, a Scottish castle overlooking the Firth of Clyde, near Maybole, Carrick, on ancestry visit to the Ayrshire coast. It is the former home of the Marquess of Ailsa, the chief of Clan Kennedy. Culzean Castle was constructed as an L-plan castle by order of the 10th Earl of Cassilis. He instructed the architect Robert Adam to rebuild a previous, but more basic, structure into a fine country house to be the seat of his earldom. The castle was built in stages between 1777 and 1792.Dwight D. Eisenhower first visited Culzean Castle in 1946 and stayed there four times, including once while President of the United States.

The surname Kennedy was first found in Ayrshire, Gaelic: Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, formerly a county in the southwestern Strathclyde region of Scotland, that today makes up the Council Areas of South, East, and North Ayrshire, where the earliest record of them dates from 1185, during the reign of King William the Lion, when a Henry Kennedy was reported to have been involved in a rebellion in Galloway but died in battle. The Kennedys derived from a branch of Celtic Earls of Galloway, not to be confused with Galway, which is in Ireland. Their power and influence in that region was great. In fact, there is a rhyme handed down through clansmen and bards from the year 1300 which runs as follows: " Twixt Wigtown and the town of Ayr, Portpatrick and the Cruives of Cree. No man need think to bide there, unless he court with Kennedy. "

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