Letter -- In the #4 issue of "Irish Roots" magazine (1995) there appeared an open letter containing many possible clues for researchers. Evelyn WEIR wrote - "My mother was born a MacSWEEN. Her grandfather John MacSween, was born 1829 at Snizort, Isle of Skye. His ancestors are buried in the family tomb on St. Columba's Isle, which lies at the head of Snizort Bay. On the tomb is seen the carved effigy of a gallowglass complete with chain mail, helmet and hands clasping a great sword. The effigy is weather-worn but still quite recognisable. I was told at an early age and many times after, that the MacSweens were kin to the MacDONALDs, and had fought alongside them in "earlier times," and though the family on Skye were Presbyterians, they had earlier embraced the Catholic religion and that they had come from Northern Ireland to Skye in the "early days." ...On a map of Ireland I found MacSwyne's Bay at Killybegs in Donegal. This English spelling of the name is the same as that on the marriage certificate of John MacSween, my great-grandfather, of Snizort and later of Port Fairy, in Victoria. On the many certificates I hold for the family the name is written in many different ways but obviously this is the English spelling that John preferred. He, of course, was a Gaelic speaker, and knew that the Gaelic spelling was either Suibhne or Shuibhne, telling his granddaughter that in Ireland the "e" at the end was pronounced making the Irish name MacSweeney or MacSwiney. Mr. Spears refers to the MacSuibhnes of Ireland (referring to an article in issue #2, 1995), as "disappearing from history in the early 17th century with the Ulster Plantation." However for the next 250 years they multiplied on Skye, only to disappear again in the early 1850s with the help of the Highland and Island Emigration Society when their large extended family boarded the Australia-bound ship "Arabian," arriving in Port Fairy, in Victoria in September 1854. However, links with Ireland were re-established when John MacSWEEN of Snizort, married Elizabeth O'BRIEN of Cork on 04 Feb 1856 at Port Fairy, which at one time was known as Belfast. The Danish descendants of a Viking named Sweyn had first come to Argyllshire, then to Northern Ireland, and then to Skye; finally moving on to the other end of the world. My mother, Violet Evelyn MacSWEEN completed the circle by marrying the seventh son of a Danish merchant marine from Copenhagen. The MacSuibhne motto" Constant and Faithful; the crest badge: A wolf rampant ermine holding a pheon gules point downward argent." Submitter sharing information was Evelyn WEIR, Scarness, 4655, Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia.