page_title: Aonghus Mór
section_title: Clann Domhnaill
hierarchical_section_title: Aonghus Mór / Clann Domhnaill
caption_attribution_description: English: An excerpt from folio 71v of Oxford Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson B 489 (the Annals of Ulster). The excerpt appears to concern Alasdair Óg Mac Domhnaill, Lord of Islay (died 1299?).
context_page_description: mor
  Aonghus Mór mac Domhnaill was a leading figure in the thirteenth-century kingdoms of the Isles and Scotland. He was a son of Domhnall mac Raghnaill, the eponym of Clann Domhnaill, a branch of Clann Somhairle. Aonghus Mór appears to have succeeded his father in the mid part of the thirteenth century. At the time, the rulers of the Isles were fiercely independent of the Scottish Crown, and owed nominal allegiance to the distant Norwegian Crown. Aonghus Mór's first certain appearance in the historical record seems to evince his involvement in aiding native Irish kindreds against the consolidation of Anglo-Irish authority in the north-west Ireland. Such cooperation could have been undertaken in the context of overseas kindreds like Clann Domhnaill constructing Irish alliances to gain assistance against Scottish encroachment.
  Scottish aggression against the Isles seems to have precipitated the Norwegian Crown's campaign against the Scots in 1263. Like other leading members of Clann Somhairle, Aonghus Mór supported the Norwegian cause against Alexander III, King of Scotland.
context_section_description: Aonghus Mór was a son of Domhnall mac Raghnaill, eponym of Clann Domhnaill. As such, Aonghus Mór can be regarded as the first Mac Domhnaill. Clann Domhnaill was the junior-most of three main branches of Clann Somhairle. The other two branches were Clann Dubhghaill and Clann Ruaidhrí, respectively descended from (Domhnall's uncle) Dubhghall mac Somhairle and (Domhnall's elder brother) Ruaidhrí mac Raghnaill. According to oral tradition dating to the eighteenth century, Aonghus Mór was fostered by the eponymous ancestor of Clann Duibhshíthe. The date of Domhnall's death and Aonghus Mór's succession is unknown, although the latter was certainly representing the family by 1260s, seemingly indicating that the former was dead or retired by this time.
  Aonghus Mór was married to a member of the Caimbéalaigh kindred (the Campbells). According to early modern tradition preserved by the seventeenth-century Sleat History, she was a daughter of Cailéan Mór Caimbéal, a leading member of the Caimbéalaigh, and the mother of Aonghus Mór's younger son, Aonghus Óg. Like his Clann Somhairle kinsman, Eóghan Mac Dubhghaill, Aonghus Mór evidently named his first-born son, Alasdair Óg, after Alexander III, King of Scotland. The kindred's adoption of this royal name appears to be indicative of the spread of Scottish influence into Isles, and could be evidence of the family's attempt to align itself closer to the Scottish Crown.
  A daughter of Aonghus Mór married Domhnall Óg Ó Domhnaill, King of Tír Chonaill. Another married Hugh Bisset. Alasdair Óg was the progenitor of several prominent Clann Domhnaill gallowglass families in Ireland, the eponymous ancestor of the Clann Alasdair branch of Clann Domhnaill, and probably of the like-named Kintyre branch of Clann Domhnaill. Another son, Eóin Sprangach, was the ancestor of the Ardnamurchan branch of Clann Domhnaill. There is evidence to suggest that Aonghus Mór may have had yet another son, named Domhnall. Although various historical records and chronicle-accounts concerning the period make note of this man, with some of these sources styling him "of Islay", the precise identity of this individual is uncertain.
  A seventeenth-century pedigree of the  Ó Gnímh bardic kindred of Ulster traces its descent from a son of Aonghus Mór named Gofraidh. The familial origins of this kindred are uncertain. Whilst it is possible that the family is a branch of Clann Domhnaill, there is also reason to suspect that a genealogical connection between the families was concocted. 
  According to the seventeenth-century  Macintosh History, an ancestor of Clann Mhic an Tóisigh named Fearchar married a daughter of Aonghus Óg named "Moram". The fact that Fearchar is supposed to have died in 1274, however, suggests that this source has conflated Aonghus Óg and Aonghus Mór . Alexander Mackintosh Shaw (1880) confirms the father of Moran to be Aonghus Mór; "Ferquhard's intercourse with the fair Mora of Isla was at first of an unauthorised character, and that, this being discovered, the lover fled to avoid the wrath of the powerful father. He took refuge in Ireland, but before he had been there long he was recalled, and on his return made Mora his wife."
caption: The apparent name of Alasdair Óg as it appears on folio 71v of Oxford Bodleian Library Rawlinson B 489 (the Annals of Ulster).[35]
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