The Birlinn or Heraldic Galley
By Bob Flaws, Editor

Most Clan Sinclair members are familiar with the picture of the galley or boat found on the shield of the memorial stone of the Westford knight, reputed to be a burial effigy of Sir James Gunn, companion of Prince Henry, jarl of Orkney.  Similar galleys are found on the coat of arms of a number of other Scottish clans, notably the MacDonalds/Clan Ranald and the MacLeods of Harris and Dunevegan.  What some Clan Sinclair members may not be aware is that a similar "heraldic galley" is depicted in the upper left quadrant of our own Clan Chief's coat of arms, Lord Malcolm, Earl of Caithness.  Lord Malcolm's personal coat of arms shows a 17th century sailing frigate in the lower right quadrant, a medieval galley in the upper left quadrant, and ramparnt red lions on a golden field in the remaining two quadrants, these four quadrants separated by a black (or black and white) engrailed cross in the center.

At first sight, this galley looks a bit like a viking longship.  However, it is more probably a depiction of a later style of sailing and fighting ship common in the Northern Isles in the 12-16th centuries.  This was called a birlinn or West Highland galley, and its shape is attributed to the famous progenitor of the MacDonalds, Somerled.  Somerled was half Norse and half Daldriadan Celt.  In fact, Somerled's name is Norse for "Summer sailor," a Viking name.  However, despite his own heritage (or maybe because of it), Somerled is remembered by history as the man who ejected the Vikings from the Inner and Outer Hebrides on both sides of the Irish Sea or what the Vikings called Scotlandfjord.  In part, Somerled accomplished this feat by modifying the Norse longship into a more effective fighting galley.

The Viking longship was itself a remarkable innovation in navel warfare which directly contributed to the success of the sons of Odinn in the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries.  For instance, the Bayeaux Tapestry shows exactly this type of longship which allowed William the Conqueror to land his famous amphibious assault on Pevenesy, England in 1066.  Because of its shallow draft, the longship enabled Vikings to venture far upstream on rivers and streams leading inland to rich and often undefended population centers.  In addition, this shallow draft also enabled Vikings to beach their craft directly on shore similar to LST's and other landing craft in the Second World War.  Very commonly, Vikings' attacked their coastal prey by beaching their ships at dawn in surprise assaults made possible by their ships' design.

However, the low profile and open decks of the longship made its "marines" vulnerable to attack by any ship with higher sides.  When two longships met in a sea battle, the outcome often went to the ship with higher gunwales.  The warriors in that whip could reign down their arrows, spears, and stones more effectively on the other, smaller ship's undefended men while hiding behind the relative safety of their own higher gunwales.  Therefore, there was a tendency to build ever longer, larger, higher-sided longships.  Although simply increasing the size of these longships may have made them more easily defensible, it also made them less seaworthy and maneuverable, especially since Norse longships were steered with an unweildy steeringboard attached to the righthand side.

The original Hebridean birlinn was a stubby clinker-built cog which was no match for the Viking's "coursers of the sea."  Somerled's solution to this dilemma was to raise the stern of the typical Norse longship and to build a fighting top at the masthead.  Now his sailors could rain down death on the undefended mariners of traditional longships without sacrificing the speed, maneuverability, and general sea-worthiness of the longship.  He also changed the position of the steering oar which was attached to the right rear gunwale of longships (from which we get starboard and steeringboard).  Somerled moved this steeringboard to the back of the center of the ship, making it into a straight sternpost rudder as on most ships today.  Now he had ships which could dodge, wheel, and generally outsteer the Viking longships both in sea lochs and creeks.  Somerled called these new ships nyvaig or naibheagan, meaning little ships.  (The name birlinn comes from the Middle Irish beirling which was, in turn, formed from the Norse brydingr, a ship of burden.)

This design proved itself so superior to the older Viking longship that Somerled had a fleet of 58 of them built to battle the Vikings who had harried the Scotlandfjord and Irish Sea for generations.  Over time, this design became the standard for warships in the seas surrounding Scotland.  It is this type of galley or birlinn that is shown on Sir James Gunn's shield as well as on Lord Malcolm's family coat of arms.  Should Prince Henry Sinclair have sailed to North America, this is also the likely design of the ships in his fleet.  This design was so effective that it persisted relatively unchanged for 400 years.  Clan MacDonald has built a recretion of the birlinn in the Hebrides, named Aileach.  For more information on the birlinn, see John MacAuley's Birlinn: Longship of the Hebrides, available from The White Horse Press (ISBN 1-874267-30-8).
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