MacDonnell
also McDonnell, MacDonald, Mac Domhnaill
The Hebridean lordship in Ireland — the Glens of Antrim and the Route.
Draft entry · awaiting community review
CoreHistoric reach
The seat of MacDonnell
Seat vacantChief
No chief yet. The seat awaits its first claimant — be the first to stake your name to MacDonnell.
Current mission
No mission proclaimed. The chief, once seated, sets the clan’s public focus — a campaign, a contest, a piece of restoration, a year of remembrance.
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Stake your name →Motto
Toujours Prêt
— Always ready
What does the MacDonnell name mean?
From Mac Domhnaill — son of Domhnall. The Antrim MacDonnells are a cadet branch of the Highland Scots Clan Donald, descended from Eóin Mór Mac Domhnaill, the second son of John of Islay, Lord of the Isles, who married Marjorie Bisset of the Glens of Antrim around 1399 and acquired her father's lands. From that union the Mac Domhnaill kings of the Glens and the Route held the north Antrim coast as a Hebridean palatinate of Scotland until 1603, after which they integrated into the Irish peerage as Earls of Antrim.
The history of MacDonnell
The MacDonnells of Antrim are unique among Irish surnames in being directly continuous with a Scottish clan — the Hebridean Clan Donald, who through the 15th and 16th centuries crossed the North Channel routinely as 'gallowglass' (galloglaigh) mercenaries serving the Gaelic Irish kings against the Tudor administration. Sorley Boy MacDonnell (Somhairle Buidhe Mac Domhnaill, c.1505–1590) — 'Yellow Sorley' for his fair hair — held the Glens and the Route against successive English lord deputies through the 1560s, '70s and '80s, defeated Shane O'Neill at Glentaisie in 1565, and was finally formally recognised as lord of the Route by Elizabeth I in 1586.
Sorley Boy's son Randal MacDonnell, 1st Earl of Antrim (c.1568–1636), made the family's Tudor-to-Stuart transition successfully. He was knighted by James I in 1603 and elevated to the earldom of Antrim in 1620. The title survives — the current Earl of Antrim, Randal Alexander St John McDonnell (b. 1935), is the 14th — making the Antrim MacDonnells one of the very few Gaelic dynastic lines whose peerage descends in continuous male succession from the Tudor period to the present.
Dunluce Castle on the north Antrim coast, the Mac Domhnaill seat from the 1550s, is one of the most spectacular Gaelic-period ruins in Ireland — built on a basalt sea-stack disconnected from the cliff by a chasm, its kitchen wing fell into the Atlantic in a storm in 1639 with the loss of seven cooks. The ruined silhouette is the cover image of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy.
Notable bearers of the MacDonnell name
- Sorley Boy MacDonnell (c.1505–1590) — lord of the Route, victor at Glentaisie
- Randal MacDonnell, 1st Earl of Antrim (c.1568–1636)
- Alasdair Mac Colla (1610–1647) — MacDonnell-Hebridean general, Confederate Ireland and Royalist Scotland
Frequently asked
What does the surname MacDonnell mean?
Where does the MacDonnell family come from?
What is the MacDonnell motto?
Who are some famous MacDonnells?
Is McDonnell the same family as MacDonnell?
Editor notes
- · Cross-border with Scotland — Clan Donald is the Highland senior line. The cross-link block on this page should activate when the cross-border 'Also found in' UI ships.