EDINBURGH, Scotland -- More than 300 years since members of the Campbell clan slaughtered 38 of their rival MacDonalds at Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands -- on the pretext that the MacDonalds had failed to swear allegiance to the English crown -- passions still run high.

On Monday, the MacDonalds took up the metaphorical cudgels again after hearing that the man appointed to run the new visitor center on the site of the massacre carries the dread name of their historic foes.

The National Trust for Scotland said Roddy Campbell is the best choice to head the center, which opens to the public in May. "His name did not come into it," said spokesman Simon Walton.

But Hector MacDonald, a specialist in Highland history, called the appointment a farce. "Perhaps this government-led quango thinks it can build bridges with the Glencoe community," he said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph newspaper.

"Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the Campbells, but I would not stay a night in the company of one," he said.

The massacre came after the Campbells had accepted shelter from the MacDonalds, historians say. Altogether, 38 men, women and children were shot, bayoneted or burned to death at Glencoe on Feb. 13, 1692. Soldiers looted and burned MacDonald hamlets and drove off the livestock. About 160 MacDonalds escaped, but unknown numbers perished of hunger and exposure.