The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. IV] OF SCOTLAND 247
Siol Gillevray.
Besides the Macdonalds and the Macdogalls, the MS. of-
1450 deduces various others of the Argyllshire clans from the
same race. According to that ancient document, a certain
Gillebride rig eilan, or king of the Isles, lived in the twelfth
centur}-, and was descended from a brother of Suibne, the
ancestor of the Macdonalds slain in 1034 ; and from Anradan,
or Henr\', the son of Gillebride, the same authority deduces
the Macneills, Maclachlans, Macewens, and Maclaisrichs. That
the genealogy by which this Gillebride is brought from an
ancestor of the Macdonells, in the beginning of the eleventh
century, is authentic, is perhaps more than we are entitled to
assert ; but the existence of a traditionary affinity between
these clans and the race of Somerled at so early a period,
sufficient!}' proves that they were of the same race. Gillebride,
probabl}', merely possessed the Norwegian title of a Sudreya
Konungr, or Hebridean king, which was bestowed on the
the seat of his race appears to
principal Island chiefs ; and
have been Lochaber, as the different clans descended from
him can in general be traced from thence, and his immediate
ancestor is termed " Abrice," or of Lochaber. I have ventured
to call this tribe the Siol Gillebride, or Gillevray, as I find
an old Sennachy of the Macdonalds stating that in the time
of Somerled, " the principal surnames in the country (Morvern,
Ardgour, and Lochaber) were Mac Innes and Mac Gillevrays,
who were the same as the Mac Innes." It appears from this
passage, that the oldest inhabitants of these districts consisted
of two clans, the Mac Gillevrays and the Mac Innes, who were
of the same race ; and as there is a very old traditionary con-
nexion between the clan A Mhaisdir, or Mac Innes of Ardgour,
and several of the clans descended from Anradan Mac Gille-
bride, it seems to establish the identitv of this tribe with the
old Mac Gillevrays of Morvern. The various branches of this
tribe probably formed but one clan, under the name of the clan
Gillevra}', until the conquest of Arg}'ll by Alexander II., when
they fully shared in the ruin which fell upon those who adhered
"to Somerled, with the exception of the Macneills, who agreed
to hold their lands of the crown ; and the Maclachlans, who