august utc joe re rathlin massacre the people on rathlin were not irish they were the families of sorley boy mcdonnell's followers the scottish clanchiefs had sent their families to rathlin in the belief that they would be safe there drake had been hired to supervise the transport of john norri's troops to rathlin and then patrol the waters between rathlin and the mull of kintyre to prevent the scots from sending reinforcements john norris had a force of foot and horse as well as siege guns at his disposal it seems extremely unlikely that he would have had to rely on drake and the strong crew of the falcon drake's vessel at the time to help norris do his dirty work for him john sugden's biography of drake contains a fair amount of info on the subject