MacDonald | Clan Donald
Their involvement in Ireland was continuous from the thirteenth century, when they first arrived as gallowglasses, or mercenaries; such was their fame that they were employed in virtually every local war, spreading and settling throughout the country over the following centuries. Inevitably, their main connection remained with Ulster. Sorley Boy MacDonnell married Margaret Bisset of Antrim and from this line Shane MacDonnell was allied by marriage with the Campbells, the MacDonnell clan's chief rival in Scotland; yet Sorley Boy's wife was an illegitimate half-sister of the same Shane. Sorley, the Clan Chieftan is an ancestor of the homeland clan(s). He was a powerful adminstrator of Scot's settlers and was twice married: to Mary, daughter of Con Ó Neill, 1st Earl of Tyrone and 2 creations of the Earldom of Antrim. The chieftan returned from Scotland at one point with hundreds of redshanks, sworn to never leave Ireland. Prior to the Plantation of Ulster in 1610, Sorley Boy had been the most powerful of the province's Scots settlers. The Ulster Plantation
As the civil wars of the Three Kingdoms broke out in the early 17th century the Covenanters were supported by the territorially ambitious Argyll Campbells and House of Sutherland as well as some clans of the central Highlands opposed to the Royalist House of Huntly. While some clans remained neutral, others led by Montrose supported the Royalist cause, projecting their feudal obligations to clan chiefs onto the Royal House of Stuart, resisting the demands of the Covenanters for commitment and reacting to the ambitions of the larger clans. In the Scottish Civil War of 1644-47, the most prominent Royalist clan were Clan Donald led by Alasdair MacColla.
With the Restoration of Charles II Episcopalianism became widespread among clans, which suited the hierarchical clan structure and encouraged obedience to Royal authority, some others were converted by Catholic missions. In 1682 James Duke of York, Charles' brother, instituted the Commission for Pacifying the Highlands which worked in co-operation with the clan chiefs in maintaining order as well as redressing Campbell acquisitiveness, and when he became King James VII he retained popularity with many Highlanders. All these factors contributed to continuing support for the Stuarts when James was deposed by William of Orange in the "Glorious Revolution". The Settlement of Ulster.
In Scottish Jacobite ideology the Highlander symbolised patriotic purity as against the corruption of the Union, and as early as 1689 some Lowlanders wore "Highland habit" in the Jacobite army. In contrast, despite relying on support from Presbyterian clans the government depicted Highlanders as frightening savages who ate babies.
A secondary influx into that province of settlers bearing the name occurred in the eighteenth century, when the Highland clearances caused great forced migration from Scotland. Islay suffered badly in the years 1717 and 1718. It is known that nearly five hundred left Islay in the years from 1738 to 1740 for the New York Colony. By the late 18th century the Lowlands were integrated into the British system, with an uneasy relationship to the Highlanders. The total population of Lowlanders diminished drastically in some parts of the south as a direct result of the Agricultural Revolution. That resulted in the Lowland Clearances, and the subsequent emigration of large numbers of Lowland Scots. However, with the revival of interest in Gaeldom and the visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822, there was a new enthusiasm amongst Lowlanders for identification with the Highlands. Of course the process in the nineteenth century occasioned a drastic drop in population from 15,000 about 1830 to 8,000 at the end of the century.
Clan Donald The central and southern Lowlands had been Brythonic Celtic, with the southeast coming under the Angles, then by 1034 Alba had expanded to bring the whole area under Gaelic Celtic rule. From 1124 King David I began the spread of Scots to the whole of the Lowlands, while the Highlands remained Gaelic under the Clan System. The term clan was still being used of Lowland families at the end of the 16th century and, while aristocrats may have been increasingly likely to use the word family, the terms remained interchangeable until the 19th century
