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Sir
Allister
McDonnell
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To
understand McEllestrum, we must
go back in time to Northern
Ireland pre history and the
ancient Celtic Kingdom of Dal
Riada. This Kingdom, which
covered the eastern half of
County Antrim and all the Western
Isles of Scotland, existed well
into the 13th Century. Saint
Colmcille (died 570) could have
been King of Dal Riada, but
instead choose the life of a
monk.
McEllestrum
was a direct descendent of the
Kings of Dal Riada and held the
title Prince and Chief of the
McDonnell clan.
McEllestrum's
full name was Alasdair McCulla
McDonnell, the youngest son of
Coll Cittach Mc Donnell of
Colonsay in the Scottish Isles,
descended from Coll Dhu brother
of Sorley Bhui McDonnell.
Following the execution of Coll
Cittach in August 1647, Allister
assumed the leadership of the
McDonnell clan also known as Clan
Randal South. He was an associate
of Randal I, Marquis and 2nd Earl
of Antrim and was knighted by the
Earl of Montrose on behalf of
Charles I in 1645 for his
outstanding campaign successes in
Scotland. His family home was in
Ballypatrick, Culffeightrim in
County Antrim and his wife was
Elizabeth McAllister, daughter of
McAllister of Loupe in Cantyre.
He was survived by three sons,
Colla A, Voulin Gillaspic Mor,
and John of Tanaughconny, all of
whom married and had children.
Gillaspic (also called Archibald)
was created Lord of Murlogh and
Kilmore in 1662. He had his
father's giant stature (7 feet 2
inches) and was the only son to
bear arms. He was a Captain in
the Earl of Antrim's regiment in
King James' army. At the Battle
of Aughrim (August 1691), despite
being wounded, his extraordinary
fighting prowess extricated the
regiment from disaster. He died
in 1720 aged 88 years.
McAllister
was a notable addition to the
muster for the battle of
Knocknanuss. His legendary vigour
and courage were demonstrated in
many campaigns against Loyalists
and covenantors in the North. He
was lucky to survive an action at
Drummacquin near Raphoe in
June1642. When he was left for
dead on the enemy defence work he
was rescued by the O'Neills who
took him home on a horse litter
to recover. In June 1644 he led
an expedition to Scotland but
received poor support from the
Highlanders despite many
spectacular successes that
cleared the Scottish Covenantors
out of much of the Highlands and
the Western Isles. In May 1647, a
few months before the muster at
Kanturk, he returned from
Scotland leaving most of the army
of 1600 clansmen from Antrim
scattered or dead on a dozen
battle fields and his own heroic
campaign for Charles I
unfinished. The wounds he
received at Raphoe had not
completely healed and his huge
frame suffered great pain but
being a man of action and of war
he was restless to get back to
fighting.
In
July he got a command at Dungan's
Hill with a wing of Preston's
Royalists. The army was routed
and McAllister had to battle his
way out of the fiasco with 400 of
his Glengarrys leaving another
400 dead or taken prisoner. He
was then Governor of Clonmel
where he had command of the
McDonnell contingent of the army
of Munster. the marauding army of
Parliament taking care to stay
clear of so formidable a foe. He
led the Munster regiment, as well
as his own Glengarrys, when Taffe
fled from Knocknanuss in 1647. He
was shot through the head after
being taken prisoner late in the
evening and died from this wound
within a few hours and was buried
in the orchard at Rathmaher
house. His body was subsequently
dug up by Kathleen O'Callaghan of
Clonmeen with whom he had an
affair. His huge body was taken
to the O'Callaghan tomb at
Clonmeen with all the honour and
ceremony of a Gaelic chief where
it still remains
today.
Some
of the marching tunes played by
the McDonnells as they took their
chief from Rathmaher to Clonmeen
still survive and are known
collectively as McAllister's
March. His great claymore was
taken from Knocknanuss to Lohort
Castle where it remained until
1898.
Two
of McAllister's lines of descent
joined in 1825. His son John had
one surviving son and his
descendants are numerous in the
British Isles, America, and
Australia.
The
Glengarrys remained staunch
Catholicsand retained the
McDonnell version of the clan
name. Following clearance from
their ancestral lands after 1774,
they moved into the Glasgow area
where they stayed together and
worked in the cotton industry. In
1794 they formed their own
regiment of Glengarry Fencibles
and were the first Catholic
regiment in the British Army
since the Reformation. They
served in the island of Guernsey
and were sent to Ireland during
the 1798 rebellion where their
kindness towards the native Irish
was notable. The regiment
disbanded in 1801 and the entire
clan emigrated from Scotland to
Glengarry county Ontario, Canada,
where their settlements are still
very strong. Colonel Randal
McDonnell, the chieftain of the
clan, remained in Scotland. He
died in 1828 and his son sold the
property and settled in
Australia. Randal's brother was
General James McDonnell who
heroically held the Huguenot
Chateau at Waterloo and was
commander of British forces in
Canada 1838-1841.
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THE
KINGDOM OF DAL RIADA
The origin of the Dal Riada lies
with the Conn, the ancient
Iberian-Celtic tribe who gave
their name to Lough Conn and to
the ancient province of
Connaught. By pre-Christian
times, they were powerful in
North Ulster and penetrating the
Pictish kingdoms on the west
coast of Scotland. By Christian
times, the tribe had split into
an Irish-based Dal Riada and a
Scottish-based Dal Riada. The
tribe got its name from Cairbre
Riata, son of Cormac McArt
(227-266). Cairbre was the first
to found a settlement of any size
in Alba (the west coast of
Scotland). His wife was Oileach,
a Pict and relations with the
Picts were largely peaceful. His
son Colla Uais built up the
strength of the settlement and
gave his name to Clann Colla, his
descendants in Alba, and also to
the Maguires and McMahons in
Ulster who shared that descent.
The Irish Dal Riada disappeared
from history by 500, being long
subsumed into Clann Colla and
others. The Scots Dal Riada was
centred mainly on Argyll, Kintyre
and the isles south of
Ardnamurcan (Kintyre was deemed
to be an Isle after Magnus
Barford has his ship dragged the
isthmus under full sail with
himself at the helm.) Their
territory was overrun by Brude
Kings of Picts in Colmcille's
time but in 844 under Kenneth
McAlpin the Dal Riadan and
Pictish kingdoms were united in
the Kingdom of the Scots with the
seat of government in the Pictish
centres of Scone and
Perth.
The
Scottish Isles were occupied by
the Norse and other freebooters
since the earliest times and were
taken over by the Norse in the
period of Viking supremacy of the
seas in 700-900 . In 888 Keti
Hardneb, King of the Isles, threw
off the rule of Harald of Norway
and set himself up as the King of
the Isles. Thorfin the Mighty
added Caithness and the northern
part of the old Pictish kingdom
of Alba around 1050. These Norse
rulers apparently lived in
relative peace with their Gaelic
tenants and neighbours giving
stability to the kingdom for
several hundred years.
A
succession of Gaelic-Pictish
kings consolidated the Scots
kingdom in Lowland Scotland and
Strathclyde but failed to extend
the kingdom into the highlands
and Islands. Malcolm III was
crowned King of Scotland at Scone
in 1057. Following the Battle of
Hastings in 1066, he married the
fugitive princess Margaret,
daughter of Harold and began a
process of Anglicisation that
took the Scots further and
further away from the Norse
Kingdom of the Isles and from the
Gaelic clan now occupying much of
the Highlands and Islands . In
1124 he was succeeded by his
grandson David I who was reared
in England and was fully
committed to replacing the old
Gaelic/Norse culture and language
with an English speaking
Anglo-Norman feudal
system.
Around
1100 Giollabride, a nobleman of
Clan Colla, returned to Scotland
with a band of McColla clansmen
drawn form the Irish Maguires and
McMahons to restore the fortunes
of McColla/Dal Riada in Argyll.
In his long struggle with Olaf
the Red, King of the Isles,
Giollabride was supported and
succeeded by his son Somerled. By
1140 the ancestral mainland of
the McGillvarrys and the MacInnes
were under Somerled's rule and
Somerled was married to
Ragnhilda, daughter of Olaf the
Red ,King of the Isles. In 1156
Somerled defeated Olafs successor
Godred and took Kintyre and all
the isles south of Ardnamurcan.
In 1158 he again defeated Godred
who fled to Norway leaving
Somerled undisputed King of the
Isles nominally subject to the
king of Norway, and to Malcolm of
Scotland for his Argyll
dominions. In 1164, incensed at
Malcolm IV's Norman plantation of
Gaelic territory in Galloway and
Moray he led his army to Glasgow
where he was murdered by his
valet, Maurice McNeil at the
instigation of
Malcolm.
The
direct line of descent of
Alasdair McColla from Somerled
and Ragnhilda is :
Somerled/Ragnhilda
(100-1164)
Ranald (d.1207)
Donald (a quo Clann Donald)
(d.1250)
Angus Mor (Lord of the Isles)
(d.1292)
Angus Og/Agnes O'Cahan
(d.1329)
("Good") John/Margaret Stewart
d/o Robert II (Lord of the
Isles) (d.1380)
Ian Mhor/Marion Bisset (a quo
Antrim McDonnells)
(k.1427)
Donald Balloch (d.1476)
Sir Ian Mor (exec.1494)
Ian Cathanach (exec.1494)
Alexander (a quo McAlasdrums)
(d.1538)
Coll Maol Dubh (d.1558)
Gillaspaig (k.1565)
Coll Ciotach (exec 1647)
Alasdair McColla Ciotach
(k.1647 at Knocknanuss)
The
Lordship of the Isles was
forfeited by John in 1494 and
passed to the son of the English
monarch. The Lordship line died
out in the Clan in
1545.
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