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49-720: The MacDonnells of Antrim ( Gaelic : Mac Domhnaill ), also known as the MacDonnells of the Glens , are a branch in Ireland of the Scottish -based Clan Donald . Initially part of Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg ( Clan Donald South ), the MacDonnells of Antrim became their own branch in 1558 when Somhairle Buidhe MacDonnell obtained the lordship of the territory in Ireland from James MacDonald, 6th chief of

98-543: A common descent from Sorley Boy MacDonnell . The MacDonnells of Antrim are descended from John Mor MacDonald , chief of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg . John Mor MacDonald was the second son of Good John of Islay, Lord of the Isles , 6th chief of Clan Donald , through John of Islays second marriage to Princess Margaret Stewart, daughter of King Robert II of Scotland . John Mor MacDonald married Margery Byset , daughter of

147-654: A force of men from Waterford to Scotland. Rallying his Clan Donald kinsmen, and joining with the Marquess of Montrose, despite being outnumbered they inflicted a series of crushing defeats on larger enemy forces. Perhaps their crowning achievement was when, in a daring winter campaign, the Clan Donald forces undertook a surprise march through the snow-covered mountains into the Campbell heartlands of Argyll, which were considered impregnable. They then scored an overwhelming victory against

196-452: A great deal of literature survives in it, including the early Irish law texts. Classical Gaelic , otherwise known as Early Modern Irish , covers the period from the 13th to the 18th century, during which time it was used as a literary standard in Ireland and Scotland. This is often called Classical Irish , while Ethnologue gives the name " Hiberno-Scottish Gaelic " to this standardised written language. As long as this written language

245-689: A pre-existing Gaelic culture on both sides of the North Channel . Dál Riata grew in size and influence, and Gaelic language and culture was eventually adopted by the neighbouring Picts (a group of peoples who may have spoken a Brittonic language ) who lived throughout Scotland . Manx, the language of the Isle of Man , is closely akin to the Gaelic spoken in the Hebrides , the Irish spoken in northeast and eastern Ireland, and

294-797: A sea-borne expedition against the Covenanter regime on behalf of King Charles. This request was granted, but in the end the plans were frustrated by the antipathy of Thomas Wentworth and the success of the Covenanters against the King. By 1645, however, the Scottish Covenanter regime had broken their truce with King Charles by intervening in the English Civil War on the side of the English Parliament. Randall MacDonnell once again requested to assist

343-655: Is derived from Old Welsh Guoidel meaning "wild men, savages". The medieval mythology of the Lebor Gabála Érenn places its origin in an eponymous ancestor of the Gaels and the inventor of the language, Goídel Glas . The family tree of the Goidelic languages, within the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, is as follows During the historical era, Goidelic

392-505: Is proposed as the predecessor of Goidelic, which then began to separate into different dialects before splitting during the Middle Irish period into the separate languages of Irish , Manx , and Scottish Gaelic . Irish is one of the Republic of Ireland 's two official languages along with English . Historically the predominant language of the island, it is now mostly spoken in parts of

441-492: Is sometimes used to refer to Scottish Gaelic, especially in Scotland, and therefore is ambiguous. Irish and Manx are sometimes referred to as Irish Gaelic and Manx Gaelic (as they are Goidelic or Gaelic languages), but the use of the word "Gaelic" is unnecessary because the terms Irish and Manx, when used to denote languages, always refer to those languages. This is in contrast to Scottish Gaelic , for which "Gaelic" distinguishes

490-743: The Gaeltachtaí are primarily found in Counties Cork , Donegal , Mayo , Galway , Kerry , and, to a lesser extent, in Waterford and Meath . In the Republic of Ireland 1,774,437 (41.4% of the population aged three years and over) regard themselves as able to speak Irish to some degree. Of these, 77,185 (1.8%) speak Irish on a daily basis outside school. Irish is also undergoing a revival in Northern Ireland and has been accorded some legal status there under

539-510: The Battle of Drumchatt (1497) and was driven out of Ross-shire. He escaped southward amongst the Isles but was caught on the island of Oransay, by MacIain of Ardnamurchan , and put to death. When Sir Donald MacDonald of Lochalsh was returning home from the Battle of Flodden in 1513 he was joined by Sir Alexander MacDonnell of Glengarry and Wiland, chief of Clan Chisholm to capture took Urquhart Castle . Some sources say that MacDonald occupied

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588-464: The Brittonic languages . Goidelic languages historically formed a dialect continuum stretching from Ireland through the Isle of Man to Scotland . There are three modern Goidelic languages: Irish ( Gaeilge ), Scottish Gaelic ( Gàidhlig ), and Manx ( Gaelg ). Manx died out as a first language in the 20th century but has since been revived to some degree. Gaelic , by itself,

637-669: The Canadian Gaelic dialect in Nova Scotia . Its historical range was much larger. For example, it was the everyday language of most of the rest of the Scottish Highlands until little more than a century ago. Galloway was once also a Gaelic-speaking region, but the Galwegian dialect has been extinct there for approximately three centuries. It is believed to have been home to dialects that were transitional between Scottish Gaelic and

686-694: The Chattan Confederation carried out on a raid into the county of Ross-shire , now known as the Raid on Ross . During the raid they clashed with the Clan Mackenzie of Kintail. They then advanced from Lochaber to Badennoch where they were even joined by the Clan Mackintosh . They then proceeded to Inverness where they stormed Inverness Castle and Mackintosh placed a garrison in it. The Lords of Lochalsh appear at this time to have had strong claims upon

735-758: The Clan Cameron . They fought against the Royal forces of the Earl of Mar who was supported by the Clan MacKintosh . The third Chief, Sir John Mor, with his heir John Cathanach and three grandsons, were apprehended through the treachery of the Macdonald of Ardnamurchan and were executed in Edinburgh for treason. One of his sons, Alexander, fled to Ireland. MacIain of Ardnamurchan, who had also betrayed Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh ,

784-602: The European Union . Ireland's national language was the twenty-third to be given such recognition by the EU and previously had the status of a treaty language. Some people in the north and west of mainland Scotland and most people in the Hebrides still speak Scottish Gaelic, but the language has been in decline. There are now believed to be approximately 60,000 native speakers of Scottish Gaelic in Scotland , plus around 1,000 speakers of

833-649: The Mac Eoin Bissett , Lord of the Glens of Antrim . Although the MacDonnells would a century and a half later claim that her dowry included the lordship itself, this is false because the Mac Eoin Bissetts remained in possession of it into the early or mid 16th century. However following the death in battle, in support of his friends and kinsmen the O'Neills against the O'Donnells , of the last known Mac Eoin Bissett in 1522,

882-499: The 15th century, Scottis in Scottish English (or Scots Inglis ) was used to refer only to Gaelic, and the speakers of this language who were identified as Scots . As the ruling elite became Scots Inglis/English-speaking, Scottis was gradually associated with the land rather than the people, and the word Erse ('Irish') was gradually used more and more as an act of culturo-political disassociation, with an overt implication that

931-611: The 1607 Flight of the Earls (and the disappearance of much of the Gaelic nobility), Irish was spoken by the majority of the population until the later 18th century, with a huge impact from the Great Famine of the 1840s. Disproportionately affecting the classes among whom Irish was the primary spoken language, famine and emigration precipitated a steep decline in native speakers, which only recently has begun to reverse. The Irish language has been recognised as an official and working language of

980-494: The 1998 Good Friday Agreement but its official usage remains divisive to certain parts of the population. The 2001 census in Northern Ireland showed that 167,487 (10.4%) people "had some knowledge of Irish". Combined, this means that around one in three people ( c.  1.85 million ) on the island of Ireland can understand Irish at some level. Despite the ascent in Ireland of the English and Anglicised ruling classes following

1029-480: The 19th and early 20th centuries. The Scottish Parliament has afforded the language a secure statutory status and "equal respect" (but not full equality in legal status under Scots law ) with English, sparking hopes that Scottish Gaelic can be saved from extinction and perhaps even revitalised. Long the everyday language of most of the Isle of Man , Manx began to decline sharply in the 19th century. The last monolingual Manx speakers are believed to have died around

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1078-409: The 20th century, recording their speech and learning from them. In the 2011 United Kingdom census , there were 1,823 Manx speakers on the island, representing 2.27% of the population of 80,398, and a steady increase in the number of speakers. Today Manx is the sole medium for teaching at five of the island's pre-schools by a company named Mooinjer veggey ("little people"), which also operates

1127-570: The Camerons to follow them in the field. They were superiors under the Lord of the Isles of the lands of Lochiel in Lochaber, in addition to the claims of a close marriage alliance (Ewen married a daughter of Celestine of Lochalsh). In 1497 Sir Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh and his clan rebelled against the King. Lochalsh invaded the fertile lands of Ross-shire where he was defeated by the Clan Mackenzie at

1176-578: The Campbell force that was arrayed against them at the battle of Inverlochy , with the chief Archibald Campbell ignominiously fleeing for his life on a barge as the men of his clan were being slaughtered in battle. Alasdair MacColla then occupied Argyll, and the chief Randall MacDonnell arrived to join him, but the successes of the Scottish campaign were to be undone by the defeat of King Charles in England. Many MacDonnell troops fell back to Ireland, where they opposed

1225-640: The Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg . The MacDonnells of Antrim were a sept of the Clan Donald of the royal Clann Somhairle, that the English crown had attempted to cultivate since the early 14th century in its efforts to influence the course of politics in Scotland. The MacDonnells established a growing presence in Ireland throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, and played a crucial role in the politics of 17th century Ireland. The MacDonnell's achieved much success in Ireland largely to cultural and familial connections to

1274-523: The Cromwellian invasion. MacDonnell forces supported King James II in the Williamite War in Ireland . Goidelic languages The Goidelic ( / ɡ ɔɪ ˈ d ɛ l ɪ k / goy- DEL -ik ) or Gaelic languages ( Irish : teangacha Gaelacha ; Scottish Gaelic : cànanan Goidhealach ; Manx : çhengaghyn Gaelgagh ) form one of the two groups of Insular Celtic languages , the other being

1323-585: The English crown to expel the clan from Ireland. In 1565 under Sorley Boy MacDonnell the Clan MacDonnell of Antrim and Dunnyveg fought the Battle of Glentasie against Shane O'Neill. In April 1583 the MacDonnells, led by Sorley Boy MacDonnell , who had been fighting in the McQuillan-O'Cahan feud on the side of the McQuillan clan decided to backstab their allies. In the ensuing battle of Aura Edward McQuillan

1372-517: The Gaelic nobility of Ireland. Today the surname is predominantly spelled McDonnell in Ireland and abroad, although many McConnells are also of the same family, as that is the Gaelic pronunciation of the Mac Domhnaill. Most of the leadership of the Clan wrote their name as a variant of McConnell up until the 17th century, including Sorley Boy MacDonnell himself. Many of the present-day McDonnells have

1421-501: The Isles. Instead the right remained with his younger brother John of Islay, Earl of Ross , 4th Lord of the Isles, 9th chief of Clan Donald, the son of Elizabeth Seton. Celestine married Finvola Maclean, daughter of Lachlan Bronneach Maclean of Duart. Celestine was succeeded as chief of Clan MacDonald of Lochalsh by his son Alexander. Ewen Cameron XIII Chief of Clan Cameron and a large body of Camerons, joined by Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh , Clan Ranald of Garmoran and Lochaber and

1470-455: The King by orchestrating an expedition from Ireland. This had the joint aims both of weakening the Covenanter regime on behalf of the King, and of reclaiming lands from Clan Campbell . The Catholic MacDonnells were pitted against their Campbells foes, who were at the forefront of the puritanical Protestant Covenanter regime. This time, the plans for an expedition came to fruition, with Alasdair MacColla (also known as Alexander MacDonnell) leading

1519-482: The castle for three years despite the efforts of Clan Grant to dislodge them. Sir Donald MacDonald of Lochalsh, whose father had been assassinated by Maclain of Ardnamurchan. Sir Donald, who was then attempting to lay claim to the Lordship of the Isles besieged Mingarry Castle , seat of Ardnamurchan in 1515 and again, more successfully, two years later, when he took possession of the castle, which he burned and laid waste

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1568-609: The language from the Germanic language known as Scots . In English, it is common to have distinct pronunciations of the word, with Scottish Gaelic pronounced / ˈ ɡ æ l ɪ k / compared to Irish and Manx Gaelic pronounced / ˈ ɡ eɪ l ɪ k / . The endonyms ( Gaeilge , Gaelic and Gaolainn in Irish, Gaelg in Manx and Gàidhlig in Scottish Gaelic) are derived from Old Irish Goídelc , which in turn

1617-508: The language was not really Scottish, and therefore foreign. This was something of a propaganda label, as Gaelic has been in Scotland for at least as long as English, if not longer. In the early 16th century the dialects of northern Middle English , also known as Early Scots , which had developed in Lothian and had come to be spoken elsewhere in the Kingdom of Scotland , themselves later appropriated

1666-487: The lordship of the territory in Ireland from James MacDonald, 6th of Dunnyveg. John Mor was assassinated by James Campbell in 1427. John's son Donald Balloch MacDonald , the second chief, led the clan when they fought and won at the first Battle of Inverlochy (1431) . This was in support of their cousin Alexander of Islay, Earl of Ross , 3rd Lord of the Isles and 8th chief of Clan Donald . The MacDonalds were supported by

1715-486: The middle of the 19th century; in 1874 around 30% of the population were estimated to speak Manx, decreasing to 9.1% in 1901 and 1.1% in 1921. The last native speaker of Manx, Ned Maddrell , died in 1974. At the end of the 19th century a revival of Manx began, headed by the Manx Language Society ( Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh ). Both linguists and language enthusiasts searched out the last native speakers during

1764-597: The name Scots . By the 17th century Gaelic speakers were restricted largely to the Highlands and the Hebrides. Furthermore, the culturally repressive measures taken against the rebellious Highland communities by The Crown following the second Jacobite Rebellion of 1746 caused still further decline in the language's use – to a large extent by enforced emigration (e.g. the Highland Clearances ). Even more decline followed in

1813-523: The now-extinct Galwegian Gaelic of Galloway (in southwest Scotland), with some influence from Old Norse through the Viking invasions and from the previous British inhabitants. The oldest written Goidelic language is Primitive Irish , which is attested in Ogham inscriptions from about the 4th century. The forms of this speech are very close, and often identical, to the forms of Gaulish recorded before and during

1862-527: The recently arrived MacDonnells appear to have started making their own gains in the region and eventually used the earlier marriage to claim they had rights to the Bissett lordship. The MacDonnells already possessed Dunnyvaig Castle on the Isle of Islay and lands in Kintyre , Scotland . The MacDonnells of Antrim did not become a separate branch of Clan Donald until 1558, when they were part of Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg , when Somhairle Buidhe MacDonnell obtained

1911-572: The sole Manx-medium primary school, the Bunscoill Ghaelgagh . Manx is taught as a second language at all of the island's primary and secondary schools and also at the University College Isle of Man and Centre for Manx Studies . Comparison of Goidelic numbers, including Old Irish. Welsh numbers have been included for a comparison between Goidelic and Brythonic branches. * un and daa are no longer used in counting. Instead

1960-490: The south, west, and northwest. The legally defined Irish-speaking areas are called the Gaeltacht ; all government institutions of the Republic, in particular the parliament ( Oireachtas ), its upper house ( Seanad ) and lower house ( Dáil ), and the prime minister ( Taoiseach ) have official names in this language, and some are only officially referred to by their Irish names even in English. At present,

2009-405: The suppletive forms nane and jees are normally used for counting but for comparative purposes, the historic forms are listed in the table above There are several languages that show Goidelic influence, although they are not Goidelic languages themselves: Clan MacDonald of Lochalsh The MacDonald of Lochalsh branch was founded by Celestine MacDonald (d.1476). Celestine MacDonald

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2058-469: The time of the Roman Empire . The next stage, Old Irish , is found in glosses (i.e. annotations) to Latin manuscripts —mainly religious and grammatical—from the 6th to the 10th century, as well as in archaic texts copied or recorded in Middle Irish texts. Middle Irish, the immediate predecessor of the modern Goidelic languages, is the term for the language as recorded from the 10th to the 12th century;

2107-622: The two other Goidelic languages. While Gaelic was spoken across the Scottish Borders and Lothian during the early High Middle Ages it does not seem to have been spoken by the majority and was likely the language of the ruling elite, land-owners and religious clerics. Some other parts of the Scottish Lowlands spoke Cumbric , and others Scots Inglis , the only exceptions being the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland where Norse

2156-566: Was himself killed in 1518 by those who he had betrayed. On the death of James MacDonald, the sixth chief of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg and Antrim, the Antrim Glens were seized by one of his younger brothers, Sorley Boy MacDonnell (Somhairle Buidh: Somhairle of the yellow hair ). Somhairle is best known for establishing the MacDonnell clan in Antrim and resisting the campaign of Shane O'Neill and

2205-419: Was killed bringing about the McQuillans rule over The Route as well as their seat of Dunluce Castle . Alaster, the eldest son of Sorley Boy was killed in 1585, his head was placed on a spike at Baile-atha-cliath ( Dublin ). Randal MacDonnell was a personal friend and courtier of King Charles I. Upon the commencement of the Bishops' Wars between Charles I and the Scottish Covenanters , he offered to lead

2254-445: Was restricted to Ireland and, possibly, the west coast of Scotland . Medieval Gaelic literature tells us that the kingdom of Dál Riata emerged in western Scotland during the 6th century. The mainstream view is that Dál Riata was founded by Irish migrants, but this is not universally accepted. Archaeologist Ewan Campbell says there is no archaeological evidence for a migration or invasion, and suggests strong sea links helped maintain

2303-479: Was spoken. Scottish Gaelic was introduced across North America with Gaelic settlers. Their numbers necessitated North American Gaelic publications and print media from Cape Breton Island to California. Scotland takes its name from the Latin word for 'Gael', Scotus , plural Scoti (of uncertain etymology). Scotland originally meant Land of the Gaels in a cultural and social sense. (In early Old English texts, Scotland referred to Ireland.) Until late in

2352-427: Was the eldest son of Alexander of Islay, Earl of Ross , 3rd Lord of the Isles and 8th chief of Clan Donald . His mother was likely the daughter of Neil or Angus MacPhee of Glenpean in Lochaber, and Alexander may have married her via handfast. Celestine MacDonald of Lochalsh, with the support of the MacDonalds of Glengarry unsuccessfully claimed the right to succeed his father as Chief of Clan Donald and Lord of

2401-456: Was the norm, Ireland was considered the Gaelic homeland to the Scottish literati . Later orthographic divergence has resulted in standardised pluricentristic orthographies. Manx orthography, which was introduced in the 16th and 17th centuries, was based loosely on English and Welsh orthography, and so never formed part of this literary standard. Proto-Goidelic, or Proto-Gaelic, is the proposed proto-language for all branches of Goidelic. It

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