Gillandres
The title Earl of Ross has existed in both Scotland and Ireland. In 1160 Ross takes precedence as the first erected clan in the time of Malcolm, Earl of Ross. Malcolm, Earl of Ross, to whom King Malcolm IV the Maiden. directed a letter placing the monks of Dunfermline under his protection. as is probable, he was made Earl of Ross in 1157, he may have been the 'Gillandres', one of the six Earls who, according to Wyntoun, joined in the opposition to Malcolm IV the Maiden after his return from Toulouse. 'Gillandres' has been supposed to be a different Earl of Ross, but as 'Gillandres' or 'Ghilleanrias' was the patronymic of the Earls of Ross in the time of Wyntoun, it is not improbable that he applied it to Malcolm. The latter died 23 October 1168.
Skene is also of opinion that this Gillandres represented the old Celtic earls of Ross, as the clan bearing the name of Ross are called in Gaelic Clann Ghilleanrias, or descendants of Gillandres, and may, he thinks, have led the revolt which drove Malcolm MacHeth out of the earldom. Wyntoun mentions an Earl "Gillandrys", a name which is derived from the common ancestor of the Mackenzies and Rosses, "Gilleoin-Ard-Rois," as one of the six Celtic earls who besieged King Malcolm at Perth in 1160. The same King, two years after the incident at Perth, gave the earldom of Ross to Floris III, Count of Holland, on that nobleman's marriage with his niece Ada, in 1162, but the new earl never secured practical possession. He is, however, found claiming it as late as 1179, in the reign of William the Lion. This creation became extinct on his death in 1168.
The Gaelic name of the original Earls of Ross was O'Beolain - a corruption of Gilleoin, or Gillean, na h`Airde - or the descendants of Beolan. The district of Ross is often mentioned in the Norse sagas along with the other parts of the country then governed by Mormaers or Jarls, and Skene in his earlier work says that it was only on the downfall of those of Moray that the chiefs of Ross appear prominent in historical records, the Mormaer of Moray. At the mouth of the Ness Chanonry was established the Cathedral of the Bishop of Ross. Nearby is located Cromarty, where the nobleman Urquhart by ancestral right has jurisdiction as Sherrif of this Prefecture. Later with the passage of time this hierarchy was settled in Scotland. There are two Archbishops, of St Andrews and Glasgow, of whom the former is considered Primate of all Scotland, under whose authority are eight Bishoprics: Dunkeld, Brechin, Aberdeed, Ross, Moray, Caithness, Dublane, Orkney. Under the Archbishop of Glasgow there are only three: Withorn, Lismore, The Isles.
When the rule of the Celtic maormors or earls ceased in the 12th century, consequent on the plantation of the district with settlers from other parts (including a body of Flemings), by order of King David I of Scotland, who was anxious to break the power of the Celts, the bounds of Moravia were contracted and the earldom of Ross arose. At first Ross proper only included the territory adjoining the Moray and Dornoch Firths. The first earl was Malcolm MacHeth, who received the title from Malcolm IV the Maiden. After his rebellion in 1179 chronic insurrection ensued, which was quelled by Alexander II, who bestowed the earldom on Farquhar Macintaggart (Farquhar, son of the priest), then Abbot of Applecross, and in that capacity lord of the western district. However, the true founder was of course the famous Ferchar mac in tSagairt, who attained the title probably sometime in the 1220s by destroying the "MacHeths" and "Meic Uilleim", two rebel kinship groups. In 1230, Earl Fearchar/Farquhar founded the Abbey of Fearn to promote Christianity and civilization within the land of Ross. [Donald MacKinnon, op. cit.] In the manuscript of 1467 the name Gille-Anrias appears in the genealogies of both the Mackenzies and the Rosses exactly contemporaneous with the generation which preceded the original grant to "Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt" of the Earldom of Ross.
Ferchair Mac an t'Sagairt, who was apparently the grandson or great-grandson of Gillandres, one of the six earls who besieged Malcolm IV the Maiden at Perth in 1160, brought into closer connection with the crown. The lay Abbots of which Ferquhard was the head were the hereditary possessors (erenaghs) of all the extensive territories which had for centuries been ruled and owned by this old and powerful Celtic monastery. As a reward for his services against the men of Moray in 1215 and for the great services which, in 1222, he again rendered to the King in the subjugation of the whole district then known as Argyle, extending from the Clyde to Lochbroom, he received additional honours. In that campaign known as "the Conquest of Argyle," Ferquhard led most of the western tribes, and for his prowess, the Celtic earldom, which was then finally annexed to the Crown and made a feudal appanage, was conferred on him with the title of Earl of Ross, and he is so designated in a charter dated 1234.
The fortunes of the family of Ross thus rose upon the decay of the ancient Norwegian earldoms of Orkney and Caithness. By the middle of the century Alastair, Earl of Ross, had attained the high position of Justiciar of the Kingdom, and from that time, for two centuries and a half, the Earls of Ross remained the most powerful nobles in the north.
In the yeare 1230, Ferquhard founded the Abbey of Ferne (Fearn) in the Parish of Edderton. The Abbey, not long after its foundation, was removed to a site several miles distant, and in subsequent years it was known as the "Abbacia de Nova Farina." [Alexander Ross, op. cit.] There was another final, brief uprising led by Gillescop MacWilliam against the Royal line. During the Galloway Campaign to bring the independent region under Scottish control, the second Earl of Ross received a grant of land in Galloway for his services. Fearchar, second Earl of Ross, died in his Castle of Delney in 1251 and was buried in the Abbey of Fearn which he had built.
Regarding an engagement which took place between Alexander II and the Gallowegians, in 1235, the Chronicle of Melrose says, that at the beginning of the battle the Earl of Ross, called Macintagart, came up and attacked the enemies (of the King) in the rear, and as soon as they perceived this they took to flight and retreated into the woods and mountains, but they were followed up by the Earl and several others, who put many of them to the sword, and harassed them as long as daylight lasted. In Celtic Scotland, it is stated that the hereditary lay (lagman) priests of which he was the chief according to tradition, bore the name of O'Beollan; and MacVuirich, in the Black Book of Clanranald, says that from Ferquhard was descended Gillapatrick the Red, son of Roderick the Red, and known traditionally as the Red Priest, whose daughter, at a later date, married and carried the monastery lands of Lochalsh and Lochcarron to the Macdonalds of the Isles.
Another Uí Eachach family of Abbots in Co. Down gave rise to the barony name Iveagh, from the dative Uibh Eachach." and the earliest union of the Picts and the Scots (Connacht) near Ulidia or Antrim and the strictly tribal offices of the Gaels in the kingdom of Albany and the Gaels of Cianacht (Co. Down, Monaghan, Breifne) in the early Middle Ages. The South Albans descend from the original Pictish tribal population of Stirlingshire for which in missions among the Celts in northern France, having to do with Ninian's foundation at Whithorn where Ninian was a monk of Celtic Gaul, also Fife and especially lowland Perthshire and Angus. The Irish Annals and Chronicles are replete in their references to the children of Abbots (abbas). This probably had something to do with the physical proximity of Fortrenn to the English Kingdom of the Northumbrians, who were the main threat to the security of the Picts and Dalriadic Scots as well. Out of this Pictish past came the medieval office of mormaer (earl). The Dal Riada were originally a tribe of North Antrim in Ireland. In the Irish Calendar of the Four Masters the name of this parish is written Cill Rois under the 28th of January, and the church is placed in the Termon of Iniscathy. The word “Ross” here means wood. After the Anglo-Norman Conquest, the lands of Saggart, together with those of Newcastle Lyons, Esker, and Crumlin, were retained as Crown property, and became one of the four royal manors now embraced in the barony of Newcastle; a parish and Saggart; a civil parish. In 1119 St. William of Vercelli built a monastery of strict observance and perpetual abstinence on Monte Vergine, and in 1149 his successor Blessed Robert, with the approval of Alexander III, gave it to the Benedictines. Tuath-na-Fearna was the ancient name of the parish of Killadysert.
The Isle of Man gave birth to the MacDonalds and among Munster families (the Déisi Mumhan of the Érainnian race in Co. Waterford and southern Co. Tipperary) they married and the Hebridean relatives the MacDougalls- presiding Lords of Argyle, the Ulster MacDonnells - all patronymic ancestors of Somerled's sons and sooner Galloway and Hebrides outnumbered by their Lordships. A branch of these Thomond MacDonnells settled in Connacht. The Cenél mBaoith were one of the original Dalcassian clans from the time of Brian Boru. The galloglach were a combination of Scot and Viking who lived on the western islands of Scotland under Norse control.
Paul McTyre, the grandson of Olaf the Red, controlled a large part of Sutherland and the Parish of Kincardine (Co.Cork) in the County of Ross. Towering in importance over these two smaller kingdoms was the Kingdom of Aileach (Inishowen), held by the descendants of Nial Glundubh, the MacLochlainns (clanlaughlangrilles) and the Ua Neills, who ruled the North of Ireland. The Rosses are marked on a modern map of Ireland in the civil parish of Templecrone, in the far north of the barony of Boylagh, Donegal.