"Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion which he has over them; it is certainly a subject, even for its nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into. The understanding, like the eye, while it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no notice of itself; and it requires art and pains to set it at a distance and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficulties that lie in the way of this inquiry; whatever it be that keeps us so much in the dark to ourselves; sure I am that all the light we can let in upon our minds, all the acquaintance we can make with our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other things."

        Recognizing my limitations, I have undertaken this history of “Cineal Ua Dhomhnuil Nan Eilean” (The Children of the Noble World Mighty of The Isles) in order to improve my own understanding of my heritage; to preserve what information I have acquired over the years in regard to this, the greatest of all the Gaelic clans; to bring to light history that has been suppressed by the Clan’s enemies, by time and by the scope of their accomplishments and, finally; because I am told that it is the responsibility of grandparents to be the historians of the family. It has often been said that history is merely a lie that has been agreed upon and certainly some so called histories are intentionally false. Others are in error because they rely on faulty sources that are uncorroborated. But The Right Reverend Willie Walsh, Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, Co. Clare, Ireland, speaking of suppression of a long standing policy of institutional child abuse in his diocese by the Magdalene Order of Nuns, said that, “Truth is a fundamental Gospel value.” It is in pursuit of that value that this work was begun. The comparatively recent Protestant Reformation and displacement of the Gael by the English conquerors also separated the Scots Highlanders from the Gael of Ireland and produced their current distinctly different characteristics, as well as a fundamental ignorance of the truth of their heritage. I believe that there is a need and a right for all to know from whence they came, and from whence came their pain, and their glory. I am reminded of the words of the Gaelic historian Thomas Babington MacAulay (1800 - 1859), who wrote:

To every man upon this earth,
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can a man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his gods?

        What began as a casual genealogy has indeed become a crusade as I discovered the elaborate crimes which have been perpetrated by the Scots, Irish, English, Protestants and Catholics against my name and family for hundreds of years. This was often done in support of attempted foreign domination of MacDonald lands and to suppress public awareness of the genocide committed upon my ancestors to achieve it. That MacDonald castles have been destroyed stone by stone, while those of the English Crown’s toadies have been retained and restored in all their glory, should be taken as a badge of MacDonald honor. For over fifty years, civilization has been bombarded with recriminations against the eight years of the Nazi holocaust. We too, are entitled to justice and to closure for the more than six hundred years of our forefathers’ ordeal. Unfortunately, the 600 Domhnallaich butchered on Rathlin Island in 1575, and again in 1642; the slaughter of almost 1,000 Irish MacDonnell prisoners of war, together with their 300 wives and children, including the unborn, at Philiphaugh in 1645; the 300 massacred at Dun Abhartaidh in 1647; or the 39 dishonorably murdered at Glencoe in 1692; cannot speak for themselves. American academics give entirely too much credence to English historical accounts; accounts intended to justify the indefensible and rendered by a people who built an empire on a foundation of tyranny, genocide and duplicity.

        Although people often speak of “old families,” in fact no family is older than any other. It is only that some families have managed to maintain their identity and retain records of their past longer than the majority of other people, as the rural Gael have, to some extent because they, like the Israelites, retained a patriarchal form of government longer than did the races who inhabited the maritime cities of the ancient world. In England and many other countries, only a limited aristocracy recorded their genealogy. In Gaelic society however, everybody was eventually descended, one way or another, from several of the fifty-eight great royal clans of Ireland and Scotland. Moreover, bastardy didn’t bar innocent children from membership in the clan, or necessarily exclude a son from succession, even to a chiefship. At the same time, Gaelic tradition holds the royal and dynastic origin of the founder chiefs sacred, ennobling the clans and creating the ultimate kinship with the Gaelic kings which accounts for Gaelic pride and loyalty.

        A short history of a clan must be based on some account of its’ chiefs, just as a short history of a country tends to concentrate on the affairs of its kings or presidents, although some clans, like Cineal ua Dhomhnuil, grew to number, actually in the millions. You should understand that, in Gaelic fashion, the royal title was not King of Scotland, but rather “King of Scots,” as Chief of Chiefs of the family of Scots throughout the world; and Brian Boru was enscribed in “The Book of Armagh” as “Emperor of The Irish,” rather than of Ireland. The clans were extended families and their members kin. So this is a history of the Clan, not of a few feudal barons who abandoned their duty in favor of personal wealth and power. Burns expressed the Highlanders' belief in the universal dignity of all men well:

“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The man's the gold for á that . . .”

        Within the royal “Cineal ua Dhomhnuil,” the title “An MacDhomhnuil” (The Son of World Mighty) is reserved for the elected “High Chief” of the Clan, while the title “Chief” includes the elected heads of the thirteen principal branches. The heads of lesser branches or septs such as the MacDonalds of Colonsay or the MacDonalds of Benbecula are called “Chieftains.” Usually each branch acted collectively in matters affecting the affairs of their clansmen, up until after Culloden. This was true, to some extent, among the branches as well, even though Cineal ua Dhomhnuil was both a Highland Scottish clan and an Irish clan at the same time and with similar power and influence in both realms for hundreds of years. The "MhiccDhomhnuil nan Eilean” (Descendants of World Mighty of the Isles, i.e. MacDonalds of The Isles) are unique in this regard. No other Gaelic family since their predecessors of Cineal Cholla and the Kingdom of Dalriada had their feet so firmly planted on both sides of the North Channel.

        Clans, not the king, or chief, or feudal baron, owned their land and were responsible for the welfare of their members. Younger sons were settled within clan territory, and their children in turn settled there and so the clan took root. Thus, the Cineal ua Dhomhnuil were the actual progeny of “Domhnuil mac’ic Somhairle ar Ile, Righ Innse Gall” (World Mighty, grandson of Summer Sailor of Islay, King of the Foreigner’s Isles) in the 13th Century. As there was little emigration and as it was considered the moral duty of the chief to provide a portion of land within the clan holdings for every genuine member of his clan, generation after generation the land was divided up. These intermarried within the clan’s territory and so the entire population gradually came to feel themselves related to the chief. Although this was often fictional in the male line, it was usually very real in the female line. Therefore, by 1746, Alasdair MacDonell, 16th of Keppoch, a chief of the Scottish blood royal of The Isles, with an ancestry going back to “Righ an Domhain” in the 7th Century BC, could refer naturally to his armed tenantry (in his famous words at Culloden) as “cineal mo chinnidh mi” (the children of my tribe).

         The early history of the MhiccDhomhnuil and the early days of the Celtic Church have sometimes been discounted, especially by English historians and theologians, as “primitive” and therefore irrelevant, showing typical English disdain for other cultures. I find it ironic that so many educated Americans of Celtic descent know almost nothing of their own heritage, while they can recite in great detail the tribal myths of the Greeks, Romans, Israelites and Anglo Saxons of the same era. I can only attribute this to English suppression of the truth and to the inherent weakness in an oral tradition. The synergy of the early Christians of these cultures especially warrants more study and there is a large repertory of Irish sagas from an earlier period than Beowulf, of considerably more sophistication, and that are native Gaelic, whereas Beowulf is not English, but rather of Germanic origin.

        In order to appreciate the scope of achievement of the Gael, we must understand that written artifacts, even when carved in stone, finally return to dust, especially in the harsh climate of the British Isles. The Celts were also unique among ancient cultures in proscribing written documents on religious grounds. In addition, countless records were destroyed as a result of repeated sacks of the monasteries successively by Angles, Saxons, Norse, Danes, Normans, English and rival neighbors; while a great deal was lost by ignorance. Edward I spitefully destroyed the archives of Scotland and the zealots of the Reformation burned what was left that they found to be “Romish,” as, to a lesser extent, the English did in Ireland. In the 18th Century, a poor tailor in the Hebrides was seen cutting up Gaelic manuscripts for patterns. But in Ireland, no violent changes occurred in the religious beliefs of the native people and a rich manuscript literature remains. That any documents at all survive is clear evidence of the tremendous number which did not.

        Another example of destruction, by ignorance on one side and apparently from spite on the other, occurred when, in 1873, Admiral MacDonald, not recognizing its importance, sent to Mr J F Campbell of Islay the famous “Leabhar Dearg Nam Clanranald,” or Blood Book Of The Clanranald, a 17th Century history of the Clan by MacMhuirich which he had recovered. James MacPherson, who was researching the ballads of Ossian, obtained the manuscript from Campbell, used it, and then destroyed it. Campbell, oblivious to this terrible loss to Cineal ua Dhomhnuil, excused MacPherson by saying the manuscript “does not contain one line of MacPherson’s Ossian.” But then, what else would he say, this envious descendant of ancient foes of the lords of The Isles? Today, Campbell apologists make a similar excuse, saying that there were other copies, although neither MacPherson nor Campbell knew that.

        This endeavor includes the conclusions of many scholars and some of my own. Not all of the findings of fact, and few of the conclusions, are written in stone. One of my fascinations with early history is that it has so much in common with exploration. You have no idea what you may find around the next corner and you can never be sure that what you find is what it appears to be. Connecting this family to known history is difficult, especially in light of Sasunnach (Saxon, i.e. English or Lowland) efforts to conceal the truth. It can only be accomplished meaningfully if effected in context. I have found no evidence that all of the data included in this work has been considered together before, or that it has been viewed from a Gaelic perspective.

        Another old Gaelic proverb says “Togaidh fear fiar aimhreit” (A perverse man stirreth up strife), but events on September 11, 2001, current scandals in more than one Christian denomination, newly revealed facts, as well as recent strife in Ulster, in the Balkans and in the Middle East, have created a new demand for understanding of relations between church and state, as well as between tribal societies and nation states. I have therefore attempted to portray the parallel evolution of the Celtic Christian Church, as well as the growth of the cultures which nurtured and shaped the Clan, which neither Catholic nor Protestant scholars seem free to attempt. This work then has become a testament to that church, and to their culture, as well as to the family; and to their association, each with the others. It is important to note in that regard that many, if not a majority of Domhnallaich, like many other Highlanders, were Jacobites more in the dynastic rather than in the religious context. They often supported the Stuarts, when they did, because the Stuarts were Kings of Scots, not because they were Catholic, while the converse was the norm in Ireland.

        The Celtic Church’s practice of Christianity represents the fire, zeal, independence and color of the Gael and, contrary to a theory of primitive irrelevancy, I find that they are perhaps the best illustration of Gaelic culture, having changed less in fifteen hundred years than I would have imagined. My own home church and its’ adjacent Presbyterian college have more in common with Finnian’s monastery of Clonard, or Ninian’s “Candida Casa” than they have differences, notably excepting that both Clonard and Whithorn were much larger and more devout, and that the modern student’s commitment is not nearly so austere, nor so permanent. That is not to discount the painful and convoluted process that Scots Presbyterians, Anglicans and Irish Catholics have gone through to become what they are and apparently will again, and again. Nor should we forget the errors, heresy, corruption, cruelty and bigotry that were, and are, part of it. Great evil has been done in the name of God.  

        I have also been impressed with the scope and power of Cineal ua Dhomhnuil at its zenith. They built an independent kingdom by the 15th Century which incorporated almost half the land of Scotland, a quarter of Ulster and a third of their people; defended their sovereignty against the Romans, the Norse, the Danes, the Normans, the Plantagenets and the Tudors; only to finally lose their independence and eventually their lands to the manipulations and piracy of Robert the Steward and his successors. But although often damaged by the evil of their adversaries, it is unreasonable to blame the fall of Cineal ua Dhomhnuil on others. John, 7th of The Isles, should have resisted divorcing Amie and the blandishments of Robert the Steward, exchanging sovereignty and honor for Norman favor. John, 10th of The Isles, may have been too weak to rule. His son, Oengus Ogh, second chief of the name, bastard and usurper, didn’t help matters if he put his own, perhaps mad, ambitions ahead of the welfare of the people, and if he betrayed his own father.

        His possible precedent seems to have been followed with ever increasing ruthlessness by his successors as some of them exploited the loyalty of their subordinate clansmen until the concepts of clan and tanistry became meaningless. The culmination of the hypocrisy is that Gorrie MacDonald of Sleate claims to have inherited the high chiefship from his ancestors, who had achieved their station by murder, treachery and slavish deference to the Sasunnaich, and had then evicted the last of their fellow clansmen from what each thought of as “his” lands in Skye in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nevertheless, Gorrie now unabashedly preens his Sasunnach title as Godfrey Macdonald of Macdonald, Lord Macdonald. Have all of the chiefs of the MacDonalds forgotten that loyalty is a reciprocal value and that betrayal is the worst of sins? Perhaps they have confused loyalty with fealty, a feudal privilege that no one owes them.

        But there were other contributing factors as well. The coming of the industrial age and the urbanization of the British Isles, with their resulting redistribution of wealth and political power, and with their new self-centered, morally corrupt philosophy, were among them. Similarly, the current generation seems to have rejected many of the actual “traditional values” of their predecessors. Rather than sacrificing self for the good of society, we hear much about “instant gratification,” “feel good philosophy,” “latch key kids,” “I’m worth it” and comparable self indulgent ideas. Public service is pursued for profit and power rather than out of a tradition of duty to God, to the public, or to the Clan. But if this generation of the Clan can manage to stay involved in this story until they are able to perceive their true place in it, perhaps it may have accomplished a useful purpose which, in my mind, is the realization that, regardless of our divergence, we are one family, one heritage, under God, with a duty to all three.

        It has also been said that the people of Ulster are “prisoners of their history,” implying that traditional values of loyalty to their clan, their religion and their race are at best irrelevant as well as archaic, if not actually evil. To the contrary, the Catholic MacDonnells, ÓNeills, ÓDonnells, ÓCahans, MacMahons, MacGuires and other legitimate heirs of Ulster are mostly long since gone, slaughtered or evicted by the rapacious English aristocrats, while their Scots-Irish successors have been exploited and abandoned with no less ruthlessness. Like the mighty "Titanic," produced in a Belfast shipyard and now at the bottom of the cold, North Atlantic, many Sasunnaich have forsaken their rusting, no longer profitable shipyards and Bogside tenements, leaving both Orange and Republican drums to sound hollowly in the empty streets, echoing the wailing, bomb blasts and gunfire of their mutual frustration. Should anyone forget what has been done there?

        And then there is the matter of technology. The Clan achieved its greatest stature when it took the lead in the 13th Century development of defensive architecture, building or restoring some thirty-five castles at key geographic locations, while leading the way in creating unique warships which were able to control their seas. On the other hand, the Clan was finally defeated by new, larger warships which they could not afford to duplicate and which they were unable to defend against, and by expensive naval and siege artillery, against which their armies, castles and ships could not stand.

        For Gaelic Americans there has been a measure of retribution in defeating the lobster backs in two wars which finally gave many of the Gael freedom again. Ironically, significant numbers of Scots fought for their oppressors, both in The American Revolution and in the War of 1812. But, even so, for the Gael of Ireland and Scotland there is justification as well. They are not the Bogside croppies or barbarian Highlanders the Sasunnaich claimed them to be. In spite of persistent repression by the English, the descendants of the lords of The Isles and the high kings of Erin have fought heroically and well around the world against great odds in the honorable tradition of their ancestors; and not without success. Although the majority of Gaelic Scots live abroad because of English oppression and could not vote, still, Scotland managed a referendum on the issue of home rule, while most of Ireland is finally free!

        And yet their history is also full of examples of futile tribalism, doomed to defeat by their refusal to make common case with other men of similar background and ideals, simply because they did not share a common ancestor, or indeed, merely because their common ancestor was too remote to appeal to their sense of loyalty. Did Cineal ua Dhomhnuil prevail? Did they win back at Yorktown, and with the development of American naval architecture, what they had lost at The Boyne, at Aughrim and at Culloden? Is American freedom and tolerance a legacy of the struggles of the Gael? Has the American melting pot accomplished what the introverted ancient hatreds of the Ulster Irish never could? There are profound social and moral lessons to be learned from this history and, for myself, this study has raised far more questions than it has provided answers. For those who are neither Domhnallaich nor Gael, this inquiry may be of interest because of the great impression on history this family has made.

        In my own mind, this tradition is not about pride or place, but about man’s ceaseless social evolution and the eternal search for freedom. The Gaelic royal families are the most ancient in Europe, but they also include in their ranks the poor and oppressed crofters of Glencoe murdered on orders of the Earl of Argyll and carried out by Robert Campbell of Glen Lyon, as well as all those thousands of people evicted and left to starve by James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery in Ireland, by “Butcher Billy,” the Duke of Cumberland and brother of William of Orange in Scotland, and by their successors. Speaking of the persecution of the Kosovars, President Clinton said, “There can be no negotiation of the right of a people to live on their land free of mass expulsion and mass murder.” Are the Gael entitled to less?

        Cineal ua Dhomhnuil represents not only the history of the Gael, but of all men everywhere. The basic conflict of this saga is between the proponents of feudal superiority and the defenders of democracy and universal freedom. There is no real difference between the “Diaspora” of the Israelites by the Babylonians in 500 BC and the Sasunnach “Clearances” of Ireland and Scotland 2200 years later, while these same ghoulish Brits were simultaneously evicting the Tuscarora from North Carolina, the Pequot from Massachusetts, the Powatan from Virginia and virtually enslaving the native populations of South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Iraq, India, Australia, New Zealand, Polynesia, etc. Our own American ancestors imposed the “Trail of Tears” on the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole and others in 1833, to make room for plantations which utilized African slaves, just as Elizabeth I had envisioned English plantations in Ulster utilizing Scots from Edinburgh after expelling Clan Donald. The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the ongoing strife between the Serbs and the Albanian tribes of Kosovo are only the latest incidents; or was it the burning, just a short time ago, of ten more Catholic churches and seven more Protestant buildings in Portadown, causing the revenge killing of three little Catholic boys in Ballymena, followed by the death of 28 Catholics and Protestants from a car bomb in Omagh. So much greed! So much hate!

        There are certain rules adopted for use in this project. First, a person’s name is sacred. Anglophiles will find no confirmation of their fictions here. To the extent of our ability, proper names will be spelled and used according to their specific owners’ preferences. This writer finds offensive the English propensity to “anglicize” Gaelic names, and even to prefer third party usage to native terms. For instance, the use by English scholars of the term “Picts,” a Brit corruption of a Roman slur, to describe the Alban Gael; as well as all the English spellings of Gaelic names such as MacDonald or McDaniel for MhiccDhomhnuil, or Somerled for Somhairle, etc, is insulting. They clearly show Sasunnach disdain for all things Gaelic and are a deliberate attempt to destroy Gaelic language and culture, a policy clearly evidenced by the 16th Century Irish laws and the 18th Century Scottish laws prohibiting the speaking of Gaelic or the wearing of tartan. This text must be written in English for wide dissemination, but it is a work of many languages (most of which I don’t speak and some that no one speaks anymore) and every effort will be made to honor the names that our ancestors and their institutions bore and at least to introduce the reader to Irish and Scottish Gaelic, those most lyrical and melodious tongues that inspired the bards and brought rhyme to the world.

        Second, there will be no discrimination by omission. Even though this is a Gaelic history, all relevant perspectives will be presented fairly to the best of the writer’s ability, even at the expense of revealing the most sanctimonious of institutions in their soiled underwear, although it is not possible to do so all at once in this format. Some of the current so-called chieftains of the Clan, content with their English honors, advocate acceptance of the status-quo, while they laud their English superiors. At the same time, others of Domhnuil’s race still seek retribution. Vengeance is a province of the Almighty, but I find some measure of requital in the proofs contained herein that, contrary to their apparent belief and assertion, God is not an Englishman. There can be no closure on the atrocities committed against anyone until all the truth is revealed, and Christian teaching requires repentance as a condition of forgiveness, although I must say that it was not I who discredited the English monarchy. They did a very good job of that themselves. It was Princess Diana, after all, who labeled the House of Hanover “The Leper Colony.”

        Finally, there is Gaelic history, there is Gaelic tradition and there is Gaelic fable. If you would know the Gael, you must know the difference and credit each for what it’s worth. A 12th Century scribe who had copied the “Táin Bó Cuailnge,” commented:

    “But I who have written this history, or rather fable, am doubtful about many things in it. For some of them are the figments of demons, some of them poetic imaginings, some true, some not, some for the delight of fools.”

        John of Fordun (d.1384), the first to attempt a continuous history of Scotland, was criticized for his inclusion of legends in his work. But it may be said that "Sasunnach" academic standards convey merely knowledge (often distorted or intentionally biased), while only the Bardic Tradition imparts true comprehension. Besides, only in the Gaedhil are the cruel hard facts of life made bearable and softened just enough by tales of leprechauns, kelpies, beasties, heroes, ghoulies, giants and fairies, so that only Normans never smiled and even old Beelzebub had a twinkle in his eye. Saint Patrick himself found truth in symbolism. Plucking a shamrock from among the grasses at Cashel (or at Tara, or elsewhere, depending on who is telling the story), he explained how its three leaves portrayed the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, three in one. Ever since, the shamrock has been the symbol of Ireland.  But seriously, the refusal of Sasunnaich historians to credit the Bardic Tradition has merely been another excuse and tool used to belittle our race.

        Domhnallaich are a patriarchal warrior race. If there are any distinctions between them and other people, they must be their pride; their passionate ferocity, inherited in equal measure from their Gaelic and Teutonic Celtic ancestors; and their equally intense four thousand year old hereditary character, their fervent loyalty to their ancestral leaders and to the ancestral land. For the worth of a man begins with his courage and loyalty, as the worth of a woman is in her virtue and compassion. It is from values such as these that we derive the concept of “enech” (honor). But it has also been said that the worth of a man is measured from the point at which he is willing to give his life for his principles. This work is intended to contribute to the development of those principles, and is dedicated to all those, like this writer, who are proud and content to be a small part of something worthwhile that is much, much bigger than themselves.

        This is as much a romance as anything, a celebration of our soul. This MacDonnell Of Leinster Association is about Sliocht Toirrdhealbhaigh, Cineal ua Dhomhnuil and all things Gaelic. It is about the misty Kingdom of The Isles; thistle and shamrocks; kelpies and seal women; tartans and claymores; Iona and the “Kindred of Saint Columba;” Somhairle mac Gillebruide and Alasdair mac Colla Chiotaich; Culloden and Boyne Water; Naomh Pádraig, and John Knox; Robbie Burns and the bards of Erin; and especially about the pipes. No Domhnullach is complete who doesn’t stand their tallest and see farther when the pipes skirl.

Next page

Return to main menu

Ionad falach nan róin slapach
(The hiding place of the splashing seals)
Phort Mias-sgeire, Ile (Port of the Plate Rock - Portnahaven, Islay)
Picture courtesy of Martin Junius, Copyright © 1994-2002 www.m-j-s.net/photo/

And so, here's a health to your enemy's enemies!

Gaelic Culture, O'Connell Street, Dublin

The Protestant West Bank, Derry

The Catholic Bogside, Derry

Saint Patrick's College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare

Dun Aonghusa (Fort of Angus), Innish Mhór, Aran Isles

Loch Ech, Cowal