THOSE who have studied deeply the subject of the ethnology of the Scotch and Irish races will know, and have often used as an illustration, the likeness, which is discernible to all, between the inhabitants of the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland, and those who people the islands off Mayo and Galway, and indeed those who live on the western shores of the Irish mainland itself. In the Scottish islands Gaelic is still spoken, of a variety easily understood by Irish-speaking people. Observing the striking similarity in language, physique, and mode of life, one is led to investigate the history, social and otherwise, of these islands, and learn something of their past records. With advantages for travel existing in this twentieth century, one is prone to underrate the intercourse that Before the Christian era, one can trace many connecting links between the Scottish Isles and Ireland. It is recorded that one of the very first Irish kings, Lugh Lamhfada, spent his early years in the island of Mull, and, closer to Christian times, Irish warriors crossed the sea to Alba for their military training. The renowned Ulster hero, Cuchullain, with several companions, visited the island of Skye for the same purpose, and a range of hills called the Cuchullins in that island still retains his name. A little to the east of Ballycastle, toward Fair Head, is a long, projecting rock, which forms a little sheltered spot still known as Port Usnach. In the first century of our era there was here perpetrated a great massacre of the royal family and Milesian nobility of He reigned wisely and well for many years after, and the country became ever and ever more prosperous. The incident is mentioned here as showing a connecting link between Ireland and Scotland at a very remote time. Passing through the centuries, the intercourse between Ireland and the Scottish Isles became very close indeed. About the year A. D. 500, a great colony left what is now County Antrim and sailed in their curraghs across the narrow sea that separates it from the Mull of Cantire, whence they colonized Islay, Jura, and Iona, and other Scottish islands, where their direct descendants still live. To understand this migration, one must recall that about the year 500 A. D. a great movement of this sort occurred in the north of Ireland to the opposite coast of Alba, now Fergus’s residence in Scotland was Dunstaffnage, on the west coast, near to the Sound of Mull, which continued to be the residence of the Scottish kings for many centuries afterward. King Edward VII. traces his pedigree back through the Scottish Stuarts to this King Fergus. At a late period of his life, Fergus wished to revisit his native country, but was unfortunately wrecked on the voyage and drowned. His body was landed at Carrickfergus, from which incident that ancient town derived its name. For half a century this domain in Scotland was held by the new settlers, under three different kings, but the king of the Picts gave them a severe defeat in the year 560. It was at this time that Columba formed the idea of going to Scotland and attempting the conversion of the Picts to Christianity. He had spent the first forty years of his life in Ireland, founding churches and monasteries, and, as an itinerant missionary, preaching all The monastery of Iona became celebrated over Western Europe, and for centuries afterward shone as a bright beacon of Christianity in this far-off isle of the sea. In the burial-ground known as the Relig Oran there are buried forty-eight Scottish kings, four Irish kings, eight Norwegian kings, and Egfrid, a King of Northumbria; few spots on earth contain more remains of illustrious dead than does Iona. It was the parent of many monasteries, not alone in Scotland and the isles, but in Ireland and the north of England. The monastery of Kells, in Meath, also acknowledged Iona as the head of the Columban monasteries. The Danish invasion of Ireland, which began toward the end of the eighth century, had an important effect on the Scottish Isles as well as on Ireland. For more than two centuries the northerners dominated everything in both countries. In the twelfth century, however, a great leader arose in Argyle, called Somerled, who drove the Northmen out of the west of Scotland as well as from the isles. He was the ancestor of the Macdonnells, Lords of the Isles, and it was he who laid the foundations of their power. This great leader was ultimately assassinated, and was succeeded by his son Randal, who had two sons, Donal and Rorie. The first was founder of the Macdonnells of Islay, and the latter of the MacRories. Islay was the territory and residence of the Macdonnells, Lords of the Isles, and Bute that of MacRory. O’Donnell, of Tyconnell, employed these two sons of Randal to cross over and assist him against the O’Neills. They arrived in From this point onward it is more easy to follow the development of the special characteristics caused by the intermingling of the Scotch and Irish races. Donal was succeeded in Islay by his son Angus. He brought the Norwegian King Hako to assist the islanders against Alexander, the third King of Scotland, when they fought the battle of Largs. Angus had a son, Angus Oge, who succeeded him. He married a daughter of O’Cahan, an Irish chieftain of the family of O’Neill, who owned all the territory of the present County Derry. Angus had greatly befriended Robert Bruce in the time of his adversity; he brought him to Rathlin Island, off the Giant’s Causeway, and kept him there when pursued by his enemies. When Bruce became king, he rewarded Angus Oge by granting him the isles of Mull, Jura, Coll, and Tiree; he previously owned Islay and Cantire. Angus was succeeded by his son John, who married for his second wife Margaret Stuart, daughter of King Robert the second, the first Stuart king of Scotland. John had by her several sons and one daughter, who married Montgomery of Eglinton. John was the first of the island kings to make an alliance with England,—a policy continued by his successors, and which ultimately led to the downfall of his principality. It is easy to trace the progress by which the Macdonnells became connected with Antrim, and formed an Irish family, whose head is the Earl of Antrim. John Mor Macdonnell, son of Eion of Islay, and grandson through his mother of King Robert the Second, came to Antrim to seek the hand of Margery Bysett, the heiress to all the lands included in the Glens of Antrim. The Bysetts were an outlawed Scotch family who, about the year 1242, were exiled from Scotland on a charge of supposed murder. With their means they acquired their Irish territory. This lady’s father had married a daughter of the O’Neill, and, being the only child, the property fell to her. After the marriage between John Macdonnell and Margery Bysett in 1399, a greater number of the islanders settled in the Glens, which continued to be a favourite resort and hiding-place when any trouble arose in Scotland. The intercourse between Antrim and the Isles, particularly Islay and Cantire, from this time became very close. There was constant going to and from the Isles, and occasional forays were made as far as Castlereagh, whence large preys of cattle would be driven The Macdonnells were able to strike a blow at England more easily through the north of Ireland than any other quarter, and the government in Dublin made up its mind to put them down. In 1551 four ships were fitted out, and a large number of soldiers placed on board to proceed to Rathlin, and, if possible, to carry off the plunder which was supposed to be stored there. The ships, on their arrival, proceeded to land an armed force of three hundred gunners and archers. The Macdonnells awaited them on the shore, prepared to give them a warm reception. By a sudden upheaval of the sea, the boats were driven high on the rocks, and, before they could recover themselves, the Macdonnells attacked and slew every man, except the two captains of the expedition. These were retained as hostages,
and afterward exchanged for the younger brother of the chief, the afterward celebrated Sorley Boy, who was then a prisoner in Dublin Castle. The intimacies and relations between the Scotch and the Irish were growing more and more involved, and a new race—a blend of the most admirable qualities of both—was being propagated. The Macdonnells at this time owned Dunluce Castle, which had been taken from the MacQuillans, also Kenbane Castle and Dunanynie Castle, built on a cliff near the sea at Ballycastle. Ballycastle, previously called Port Brittas, was the place principally used for landing or embarking for Cantire. It was also from here that Fergus was supposed to have embarked when he and his brothers founded the Scottish kingdom. A little to the east of Ballycastle is Port Usnach, whence Naysi and Derdrie sailed to Alba. There were frequent intermarriages between the Macdonnells and the leading families in the north of Ireland. John Mor, as already stated, married Margery Bysett. Donald Ballach married a daughter of the O’Donnells of Donegal. John of Islay married a daughter James Macdonnell died in the dungeons of Shane O’Neill, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Sorley Boy, the greatest of all the Macdonnells of Antrim. During the latter half of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Sorley Boy was able to hold his own against all the queen’s generals, as well as against the MacQuillans, O’Cahans, and O’Neills. He died in 1589 in his castle of Dunanynie, and was buried at Bun-na-Margie Abbey. His wife was Mary O’Neill, daughter of Conn, first Earl of Tyrone, who died in 1582. He left five sons, and was succeeded by his third son, who died suddenly in Dunluce Castle on Easter Monday, 1601. His younger brother, Randal, next succeeded, who, in the reign of James the First, was, in 1618, created Viscount Dunluce, and two years later, in 1620, Earl of Antrim. James gave him a grant of all the lands lying between the Bann of Coleraine and the Corran of Larne, a territory equal to the ancient kingdom of Dalriada. The second earl succeeded in 1644, and was created a marquis by Charles the First. He was afterward deprived of his vast property by the Cromwellians. In the reign of Charles the Second, after many difficulties had been surmounted, he had the greater part of it reconveyed to him. He died in 1682, and was succeeded by his younger brother, Alexander, who was in time succeeded by his son Randal, who died in 1721. The Macdonnells succeeded in holding a large portion of their Irish property, whilst they lost Islay and Cantire. From these brief facts one readily evolves the process by which grew up the ancient and intimate connection between the Scotch and the Irish. One realizes full well, too, that the peoples of the north of Ireland and of the In manners, customs, and arts, as well, there is a blending greatly to be remarked. In Dunvegan Castle in Scotland one is shown a drinking-cup made in the north of Ireland four hundred years ago. Naguire, of Fermanagh, in the fifteenth century, married a lady from Skye, Catherine Magrannal, and this cup was made at her expense and forwarded as a present to her relatives there. The high crosses of Ireland are reproduced in Scotland and the Isles, and the island monasteries of Ireland and Scotland were similar in both architecture and discipline, and ruins in the Flannan Islands and North Rona have their counterparts in Innismurray, Arran, and the Skelligs. |