page_title: Clann Ruaidhrí
section_title: Diminishment
hierarchical_section_title: Clann Ruaidhrí / Kingdom of Scotland / Diminishment
caption_attribution_description: English: The extent of the Lordship of the Isles in 1343 (yellow), plus the Clann Ruaidhrí territories (red) added to the lordship in 1346, after the assassination of the Clann Ruaidhrí chief, Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí. The map is derived from that shown on page 65 of: Lynch, M (1991). Scotland: A New History. London: Century. ISBN 0-7126-3413-4.
context_page_description: Clann Ruaidhrí was a leading medieval clan in the Hebrides and the western seaboard of Scotland. The eponymous ancestor of the family was Ruaidhrí mac Raghnaill, a principal member of Clann Somhairle in the thirteenth century. Members of Clann Ruaidhrí were factors in both the histories of the Kingdom of the Isles and the Kingdom of Scotland in the thirteenth- and fourteenth centuries. The family appears to have held power in Kintyre in the thirteenth century. By the fourteenth century, the family controlled an extensive provincial lordship stretching along north-western Scottish coast and into the Hebrides. As a leading force in the Kingdom of the Isles, the family fiercely opposed Scottish authority. With the collapse of Norwegian hegemony in the region, the family nimbly integrated itself into the Kingdom of Scotland.
  Members of Clann Ruaidhrí distinguished themselves in the First War of Scottish Independence, opposing adherents of both the English and Scottish Crowns. Like other branches of Clann Somhairle, Clann Ruaidhrí was a noted exporter of gallowglass warriors into Ireland. The mid fourteenth century saw the diminishment of the family in both Scotland and Ireland.
context_section_description: Following Raghnall's death, control of the Clann Ruaidhrí estate passed to Eóin by right of Áine. Although the latter appears to have been either dead or divorced from Eóin by 1350, the Clann Ruaidhrí territories evidently remained in Clann Domhnaill possession after Eóin's subsequent marriage to Margaret, daughter of Robert Stewart, Steward of Scotland. David himself died in 1371, and was succeeded by his uncle, Robert Stewart (as Robert II). In 1372, the recently crowned king confirmed Eóin's rights to the former Clann Ruaidhrí territories. The year after that, Robert II confirmed Eóin's grant of these lands to Raghnall Mac Domhnaill—Eóin and Áine's eldest surviving son—a man apparently named after Raghnall himself. Raghnall Mac Domhnaill went on to become the eponymous ancestor of the Clann Raghnaill branch of Clann Domhnaill.
  Although severely diminished, there is evidence indicating that Clann Ruaidhrí continued on for several generations. Members of the family were noted gallowglasses in Ireland at about this time. One such man, the gallowglass commander of Toirdhealbhach Ó Conchobhair, King of Connacht was notably slain in 1342. The annal-entries noting this man are the last sources to specifically note Clann Ruaidhrí gallowglasses in Ireland. Nevertheless, there is reason to suspect that a certain Eóghan—granted the thanage of Glen Tilt by Robert Stewart at some point before 1346—was an Irish-based brother of Raghnall and Áine, brought back to Scotland to serve the military forces of the expanding Steward. As in Scotland, it seems that the Clann Ruaidhrí ruling line dwindled and faded away in Ireland in the fourteenth century. Even so, the fact that the family continued into later centuries appears to be evidenced by the fifteenth-century executions of Alasdair Mac Ruaidhrí and Eóin Mac Artair, chieftains said to have commanded one thousand men apiece. The attempt by Cairistíona to divert the Clann Ruaidhrí lordship into the hands of Artúr Caimbéal, almost a century before, could indicate that Alasdair Mac Ruaidhrí and Eóin Mac Artair had continued a feud that stemmed from Cairistíona's contested inheritance and her connections with the Caimbéalaigh.
  Another family that may have benefited from connections from Clann Ruaidhrí was Clann Néill of Barra. In 1427, Giolla Adhamhnáin Mac Néill is recorded to have been granted Barra and Boisdale from Alasdair Mac Domhnaill, Lord of the Isles. Giolla Adhamhnáin's father was Ruaidhrí Mac Néill, a man who appears on record (without a territorial designation) in 1409. The fact that Ruaidhrí Mac Néill seems to be the first member of Clann Néill to have borne a name alluding to Clann Ruaidhrí, coupled with the fact that Giolla Adhamhnáin is known to have held Barra and Boisdale—insular territories formerly controlled by Clann Ruaidhrí—could indicate that Clann Néill's right to these lands came through a line of descent from a Clann Ruaidhrí heiress. On one hand, this could indicate that Ruaidhrí Mac Néill's father, Murchadh Mac Néill, had married a daughter of Raghnall. On the other hand, Giolla Adhamhnáin's charter appears to indicate that the estates passed into the possession of his family by way of its descent from his maternal grandmother, a woman who could have been an heiress of Clann Ruaidhrí. Another possibility is that Clann Néill's stake in the region specifically rested upon a marital alliance with Clann Domhnaill. In fact, the seventeenth-century Sleat History claims that Clann Néill gained Boisdale from Áine's son, Gofraidh Mac Domhnaill.
caption: Clann Ruaidhrí territories (red) consumed by Clann Domhnaill following the assassination of Raghnall Mac Ruaidhrí in 1346.[216]
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