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The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

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198 THE HIGHLANDERS [part ii<br />

immemorial ; and it is therefore scarcely possible to suppose<br />

that they could have entered the country subsequently to the<br />

ninth century. But besides the strong presumption that the<br />

Macdonalds are <strong>of</strong> Pictish descent, and formed a part <strong>of</strong> the<br />

great tribe <strong>of</strong> the Gallgael, .ve fortunately possess distinct<br />

authority for both <strong>of</strong> these facts. For the former, John Elder<br />

includes the Macdonalds among the ancient Stoke, who still<br />

retained the tradition <strong>of</strong> a Pictish descent, in opposition to<br />

the later tradition insisted in by the Scottish clergy, and this<br />

is sufficient evidence for the fact that the oldest tradition<br />

among<br />

the Macdonalds must have been one <strong>of</strong> a Pictish<br />

origin. <strong>The</strong> latter appears equally clear from the last mention<br />

<strong>of</strong> the Gallgael, in which they are described as the inhabitants<br />

and as these were at<br />

<strong>of</strong> Argyll, Kintyre, Arran, and Man ;<br />

this very period the exact territories which Somerled possessed,<br />

it follows <strong>of</strong> necessity that the Macdonalds were the same<br />

people.<br />

<strong>The</strong> identity <strong>of</strong> the Gallgael with the tribe ov-er which<br />

Somerled ruled as hereditary chief, being thus established,<br />

the independent kings <strong>of</strong> the Gallgael must in all probability<br />

have been his ancestors, and ought to be found in the old<br />

genealogies <strong>of</strong> the family. <strong>The</strong> last independent king <strong>of</strong> the<br />

Gallgael was Suibne, the son <strong>of</strong> Kenneth, whose death isrecorded<br />

in 1034, and exactly contemporary with this Suibne,<br />

the MS. <strong>of</strong> 1450, places a Suibne among the ancestors <strong>of</strong><br />

Somerled ; accordingly, as the Gallgael and the Macdonalds<br />

were the same tribe, the two Suibnes must have been meant<br />

for the same person. But the MS. makes the name <strong>of</strong> Suibne's<br />

father to have been Nialgusa, and there does not occur a<br />

Kenneth in the genealogy at all. As an authority upon this<br />

point, Tighernac must be preferred, and his account is corroborated<br />

by most <strong>of</strong> the old Scottish writers, who mention the<br />

existence at that time <strong>of</strong> a Kenneth, Thane <strong>of</strong> the Isles ; and<br />

farther, at the very same period, as we have seen, one <strong>of</strong> the<br />

northern Maormors who opposed Sigurd, earl <strong>of</strong> Orkney, was<br />

named Kenneth. We must consequently receive Tighernac's<br />

account as the most accurate ; but above Kenneth we find<br />

the two accounts again different, for there is no resemblance<br />

whatever between the previous kings <strong>of</strong> the Gallgael and the

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