Confederate Ireland
Mac Colla's military career was prompted by the onset of the long and interlinked series of conflicts known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, in which several heads of the Scottish and Irish branches of Clan Donald gave support to the Royalists and to Confederate Ireland. Their main rival for regional power, the Campbell chief Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, was a key supporter of the Scottish government, then controlled by the Presbyterian party known as the Covenanters.