The speciality of the Mac Crimmons was the pibroch, and many students studied with them for years so as to become proficient in this one branch of pipe music—a branch which is, in the estimation of most pipers, far superior to reels and strathspeys. They held the farm of Boreraig rent free until the time came when all the hereditary pipers were either dispossessed of their lands or asked to pay rent for them. The proud Mac Crimmons declined to pay rent, broke up the college, and from that day ceased to exist as a family for the cultivation of pipe music. Their farm was afterwards let to eighteen different tenants, and drew over £100 a year in rent, so they must have been treated with considerable liberality by their chiefs. No tradition exists, says Mac Kay, relating to the time when the Mac Crimmons became professional pipers to the Mac Leods, but neither is their trace of any others holding the office. The first of whom there is any account is _Iain Odhar_ or Dun-coloured John, who lived about 1600, but it is evident from their compositions that the family must have been established long before that date. They were a minor sept, and they are supposed to have derived their name from the fact that the first performer studied at Cremona. After _Iain Odhar_ came his son, _Donull Mór_ or Big Donald, who became a great pibroch player, and getting into the good graces of Mac Leod, got special opportunities for learning. He was sent to a college in Ireland, which is said to have been started there by a celebrated Scottish piper, and he learned all there was to learn.