MacIntyres participated in military campaigns during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Jacobite rising of 1745–46 but they did not operate as an independent body. Clan members served as hereditary foresters to the Lords of Lorne and as hereditary pipers to the chiefs of Clan Menzies and the MacDonalds of Clanranald. Duncan Ban MacIntyre is regarded as one of the finest Gaelic poets.