Clan MacDonald

The clan's own account begins with Somerled, who the Clan Donald USA history says defeated the Norse King of Man in 1156. Wikipedia traces the clan's descent from Dòmhnall mac Raghnaill, who died about 1250 and whose father Ragnall was styled King of the Isles. It also reports a 2005 DNA study that found Norse descent in Somerled's male line, which does not fit the older pedigrees running back to Irish kings. That is a secondary report, not a checked finding.

The name itself is a patronymic, "son of Dòmhnall", so it is not unique to this clan. The surname page covers that point.

Wikipedia says Aonghas Mòr's son Aonghus Og supported Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314, and that Bruce granted the clan the right wing in battle, a tradition not checked here. At Harlaw on 24 July 1411 Donald, 8th Lord of the Isles, fought over his wife's Ross inheritance. The earldom of Ross was lost in 1471 or 1475 depending on the source, and the lordship itself was forfeited in 1493. Finlaggan on Islay is given in secondary sources as the traditional centre of the lordship.

The 1947 recognition of Lord Macdonald restored a single High Chief, whose authority over clan tartans the Register's note says was restored at the same time. In 1972 supporters formed the Clan Donald Lands Trust, which now holds Armadale Castle and estate on Skye.

The fall of the Lordship came in two steps in the clan's own account. The High Council says the earldom of Ross was annexed to the Crown in 1475, and that in 1493 John, the last Lord of the Isles, was forfeited, with the title annexed to the Crown and granted to the Dukes of Rothesay, the king's heir. Clan Donald USA gives 1471 for the loss of Ross and Wikipedia says John surrendered it in 1475, so the clan's own two sources disagree and the High Council aligns with the later date. Wikipedia dates the last attempt to restore the Lordship, under Domhnall Dubh, to a failure by 1545.

After 1493 the lands were mostly granted to the heads of the branches or to other families that had held from the Lords. Wikipedia reports the Glencoe killings of 1692, in which 38 unarmed MacDonalds were killed, the death of the chief of Keppoch at Culloden in 1746, and the creation of the Baron Macdonald peerage in 1776. The High Council dates the end of the clan system to the years after Culloden, which is where its own account ends until the High Chief's recognition in 1947.

The Register dates the main MacDonald tartan to 1819 and records no designer. Its note, quoting the Scottish Tartans Society, calls it the oldest recorded version of the clan sett and says it matches a design in the 1880 Clans Originaux. The same note counts nine independent branches and at least 27 setts, and says authority over the clan's tartans came back with the High Chief in 1947.

MacDonald of the Isles is a different case. The Register places it among the Vestiarium Scoticum designs of 1842, says it is not generally regarded as a clan tartan, and warns that the Sobieski Stuarts never produced their manuscript. It should not be read as the cloth of the medieval Lords of the Isles.

The Lordship broke into branches because John of Islay's family did. The High Council of Clan Donald says John, the first to take the title Lord of the Isles, married twice: Euphemia MacRuairi in 1337 and Margaret Stewart in 1350. In 1372 he granted the MacRuairi lands, including the Lordship of Garmoran, Eigg and the Outer Hebrides, to the sons of the first marriage, and Ranald, one of them, founded Clanranald with a seat at Castle Tioram. The heirs of the second marriage carried the main line, through Donald of Harlaw and his son Alexander, who took the Ross inheritance.

The other branches have separate founders in the same account. Iain Mor Tanaistear is named as founder of the MacDonalds of the south, whom Wikipedia places at Dunyvaig on Islay as Dunnyveg. Alexander of Lochaber is named, granted the Lordship of Lochaber, and John of the Heather (Iain Fraoch) as ancestor of Glencoe. Sleat, at Dunscaith on Skye, and Glengarry, at Invergarry, complete the list Wikipedia gives, together with the MacAlisters as a senior cadet branch. The account in the clan's own history and the Wikipedia list agree on the branches but not in every detail of who descends from whom, and the lines between Lochaber, Keppoch and Glengarry were not checked against any genealogical work here.

This matters in practice because each branch has its own chief and its own tartans. A person who knows only the name MacDonald has several different branch claims to choose among, and the register's count of at least 27 setts across nine branches reflects that, not a clan with many arbitrary designs.

There is no MacDonald surname page on this site yet, so there is nothing to link to. Treat the name as a weak pointer: it is a patronymic meaning son of Dòmhnall, shared by families in Ireland as well as Scotland, and Clan Donald has several branches with separate chiefs. No sept list is recorded for Clan Donald here, so no other surnames are assigned to it.