“Tire” or Tyre, stands here and elsewhere for “An t’Oighre,” or the Heir, and Paul “Mac Tire” or Mac Tyre for Pol " Mac-an-Oighre,” or Son of the Heir. The name Mac an Oighre has a coarbial ring to it (like Mac an tSagairt and Mac an Aba Oighre — "the son of the heir of the abbot"—the Gaelic style of the MacNabs of Inchewin in Glendochart, the old senior line of the MacNabs dispossessed by Robert I), and probably refers to the heir of the abbey lands of Dull, centered at the mouth of Glen Lyon and the north end of Loch Tay.
The Priest-"An | Paul | | Kenneth | | Sagart” | Murdoch | | Murdoch of the | | I. Ferquhard “Mac | Ewen | | Cave who died | | an t’Sagairt” | Tire | | in 1375 | | ii. William | Paul Mac Tire | +-----+ | III. William | who has a | | iv. Hugh | charter of the | | V. William who | lands of | | died in 1372 | Garloch from | | | the Earl of | | | Ross in 1366, | | | confirmed in | | | 1372. |
Given by MacVuirich in the Black Book of Clanranald. In 1222 “Gilchrist filius Kinedi,” Gillecriosd son of Kenneth, is on record as a follower of MacWilliam. Cristean is the ordinary Gaelic form of Christopher, otherwise Gilchrist, or Gillecriosd. There is thus no doubt that the “Cristin” of the Gaelic genealogy is the same name as Gillecriosd, Gilchrist, and Christopher. In the MacVuirich manuscript, however, several names are given between Gilleoin Og and Gilleoin na h’Airde which are absent from the manuscript of 1467; for while we have thirteen generations in the Clan Anrias or Ross genealogy in the latter between Paul Mac Tire and Gilleoin of the Aird, we have only eight in the Mackenzie genealogy between Murdoch of the Cave, who was contemporary with MacTire, and their common ancestor Gilleoin of the Aird, or Beolan.
“Murdoch son of Kenneth, son of John, son of Kenneth, son of Angus ‘crom,’ or the hump-backed, son of Kenneth, son of Gilleoin Og, son of Gilleoin Mor, or the Great, son of Murdoch, son of Duncan, son of Murdoch, son of Duncan, son of Murdoch, son of Kenneth, son of Cristin, or Christopher, son of Gilleoin of the Aird.”
All the members of the clan Mackenzie, whether they believe in the Gillanders and O’Beolans or in the Fitzgeralds as the progenitors of the race; for in any case the clan was in its earlier annals closely allied with the O’Beolan Earls of Ross by descent and marriage. It has been established that Gillanders and O’Beolan were the names of the ancient and original Earls of Ross, and they continued to be represented in the male line by the Old Rosses of Balnagowan down to the end of the eighteenth century. With equal certainty that the Rosses and the Mackenzies are descended from the same progenitor, Beolan or Gilleoin na h’Airde, the undoubted common ancestor of the old Earls of Ross, the Gillanders, and the Rosses.
The genealogy of the Clan Andres or Rosses in the manuscript of 1467, is as follows:
Pol ic Tire, ic Eogan, ic Muiredaigh, ic Poil, ic Gilleanrias, ic Martain, ic Poil, ic Cainig, ic Cranin, ic Eogan, ic Cainic, ic Cranin, McGilleoin na h’Airde, ic Eirc, ic Loirn, ic Fearchar, Mc Cormac, ic Abertaig, ic Feradaig.” Dr Skene’s translation: “Paul son of Tire, son of Ewen, son of Murdoch, son of Paul, son of Gillanrias, son of Martin, son of Paul, son of Kenneth, son of Crinan, son of Ewen, son of Kenneth, son of Crinan, son of Gilleoin of the Aird, son of Erc, son of Lorn, son of Ferchar, son of Cormac, son of Oirbeirtaigh, son of Feradach.”
Colin Fitzgerald does not appear once in these early genealogies, and it has been already pointed out that no trace of it is found anywhere as a family name until the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was introduced by the marriage of one of the Mackenzie chiefs to a daughter of the Earl of Atholl, whose mother was Lady Mary Campbell, and who, calling her second son after her own uncle Colin, third Earl of Argyll, for the first time brought that name into the family genealogy of Kintail.
The Earls of Ross were superiors of the lands of Kintail as part of the earldom, and that it was therefore impossible that Colin Fitzgerald or any other person than those earls could have had a gift of it from the Crown, that the Mackenzies occupied the lands and the castle, not as immediate vassals; of the King, but of their own near relatives, the O’Beolan Earls of Ross and their successors, for at least two hundred years before the Mackenzies received a grant of it for themselves direct from the Crown. The first direct Crown charter to any chief of Kintail of which we have authentic record, is one dated the 7th of January, 1463, in favour of Alexander “Ionraic,” the sixth Baron. The O’Beolan Earls of Ross were descended from Gilleoin na h’ Airde; and so are the Mackenzies, who from the first formed an integral and most important part of the ancient powerful native Gaelic tribes of which the Earls of Ross were the chiefs.
At the same time (1267) William, Earl of Ross, laying a claim of superiority over the Western Isles, thought this a fit opportunity to seize the Castle of Ellandonnan. He sent a messenger to his Kintail men to send their young chieftain to him as being his nearest kinsman by marriage with his aunt. Had there been no previous kinship between the two families — and no one will now attempt with any show of reason to maintain that there was not — this marriage of William, the second Earl, to Kenneth’s aunt would have made the youthful Kenneth, ancestor of the Mackenzies, first cousin, on the maternal side, to William O’Beolan, the third Earl of that line, whose wife and therefore Kintail’s aunt, was Joan, sister of John, the Black Comyn, Lord of Badenoch. Kenneth Mackenzie himself married Morna or Morba, daughter of Alexander Macdougall, styled, “De Ergedia,” Lord of Lorn by a daughter of John, the first Red Comyn, Lord of Badenoch, who died in 1273. Kenneth’s wife was thus a sister of John, the Black Comyn, who died about 1299, having married Marjory, daughter of John Baliol, by whom he had John, the second Red Comyn, one of the competitors for the Scottish Crown, killed by Robert the Bruce in the Church of Dumfries in 1306. Kenneth’s issue by Morna or Morba of Lorn was John Mackenzie, ii. of Kintail, who was thus, through his mother, third In descent from John, the first Red Comyn, who died in 1273, and sixth from the great Somerled of the Isles, Thane of Argyle, progenitor of the Macdougalls of Lorn and of all the Macdonalds, who died in 1164. After 1314, the MacDougals were forfeited and lost their vast island territories, although they were later restored to the mainland Lordship of Lorn by King David II (after their seventh chief married a granddaughter of Robert I). Eventually the MacDougalls lost the lordship of Lorn, which (like many other old Scottish Dignities) passed almost inevitably to the covetous House of Stewart.
The Norwegian blood of the Kings of Man was brought into the family by the marriage of this Kenneth to Finguala, daughter of Torquil Macleod, I. of Lewis, who was the grandson of Olave the Black, Norwegian King of Man, who died about 1237, by his wife Christina, daughter of Ferquhard “Mac an t’Sagairt,” first O’Beolan Earl of Ross. The Mackenzies are also descended from the ancient Celtic MacAlpine line of Scottish Kings, from the original Anglo-Saxon Kings of England, and from the oldest Scandinavian, Charlemagne, and Capetian lines, and in Old Wallonia, Fearn, and Cromarty. Kenneth was the son and heir of Angus, the direct representative of a long line of ancestors up to Gilleoin na li’Airde, the common progenitor of the O’Beolan Earls of Ross, the Clann Ghille-Andrais, who about the end of the fourteenth century called themselves Rosses, and of the Mackenzies. The race of MacKenneth, the House of Kintail gradually rose in power and ultimately extended their influence more widely over the whole provinces of Wester and Central Ross.
In 1342 William, the fifth and last O’Beolan Earl, is on record as granting a charter of the whole ten davochs of Kintail to Reginald, son of Roderick of the Isles. The charter was granted and dated at the Castle of Urquhart, witnessed by the bishops of Ross and Moray, and confirmed by David ii. in 1344.
As the MacNaughtons (MacNeachdainn) were also settled here before they were set up as keepers of the King’s castle on Loch Awe about 1250 (their collaterals the MacLeans, who share with them the armorial quartering of the "hand holding a blue cross" of the Lismore co-arbial kindred, also returned to Loin under royal patronage about this time), the MacNairs may represent a twelfth-century ecclesiastical branch of the clan. In this case, William Cardeney’s connection with Foss may have precipitated Mariota’s liaison with the chief of the MacNaughtons. The MacNairs remained in Rannoch until the time of the reformation, by which time Foss had passed from the Cairdeney lairds to the Stewarts. After that the MacNairs are found with the MacNaughtons in Argyle. The Cairdeneys held lnchewan (by Dunkeld) and other lands in Perthshire, remained Roman Catholic, and adhered to the Stewarts, as did the MacNaughtons, who were forfeited for their Jacobite sympathies in 1691. John Cairny, son of Robert Cairfly of Tulcho in Perthshire, appears in the 1678 muster roll of the King’s Life Guard of Horse under (the younger) Murray of Atholl.
Clan MacNab of Breadalbane, Glen Dochart & Loch Tay claims descent from the abbots of Glendochart, Perthshire. The clan was a member of the Siol Ailpein, having Abraruadh, the Abbot of Glendochart and Strathearn, the younger son of King Kenneth MacAlpin as its progenitor. As far back as the reign of David I. (1124-53), the MacNabs (Mac an Aba), or at all events some of their number, were known as McNab Eyre or Oighre, the son and heir of the abbot, hence their descendants are found under variously spelt names, such as McGynnayr, McGenayr, McInayr, and Macnayre, doubtless the forerunners of the present-day McNair; and down to the time of the Reformation the name is met with as being borne by ecclesiastics in the district, thereby shewing their hereditary leaning to the Church. This particular line of Macnayres would seem to have ended in an heiress, who became the wife of William Cardney, the progenitor of another line of lairds of Foss. She was Rinald McGynnayr. The Chrionicle of Fortingall records that she and her husband both died on the same day, October 8th, 1452, her death taking place at Inshewan, and were both buried at Dunkeld. MacNab of MacNab, Abbot, Abbotson, Bain, Bayne, Dewar, Gilfillan, Macandeoir, MacIndeor