Argyll and the Gall Gael

The society in Argyll, and parts of the west Highlands in general, was unique in the Gaelic world, because of the influence of the Norse.  The Norse settled in Argyll, they did not replace the indigenous Gaelic population, but rather they joined to it, and created a unique people called the Gall-Gael, or 'foreign Gaels.'  This unique people also had a significant cultural and technological input from Norse, specially Viking, society.  The old Scottish kingdom of Dál Riata was the epicenter of Gall-Gael society.  (also spelled Gall Gàidheil in modern Scot's Gaelic) It was this society that the Gallóglaigh and related Redshank warrior castes flourished.  Their organization and accoutrement of war was Viking in origin. 

The Gall-Gael were more Gaelic in that the Norse influence was small in numbers, and it can be said they were more a case of native Gaels going 'Viking.'   We do know that the DNA results of many Argyll families from historical Gallóglaigh and Redshanks kinships, are native Gaelic in origin.

 

The Gall-Gael are the subject of recent historical research.   Below is a link to an article by a young Scottish historian that address Gall Gael people and society in mid Argyll.

Link: From Dalriata to Gall-Gaidheil

Redshank Captain Pay

The Redshanks took service in Ulster and in other places for the money. Being a Redshank soldier was profitable. Most of the Redshanks came from Argyll, Lennox,  and the Hebrides, but more than a few came from the southwest Borders Lowlands.   In the sixteenth century, during their heyday, the pay was good and grew in the second half of the century as the wars in Ulster between the Irish and the Elizabethan English grew in size and scope.

By 1575 a Redshank consapal (constable or captain) was on the same pay-scale as a Gallóglaigh captain according the Calendar of State Papers concerning Ireland.  The pay-scale during this time was on the increase because demand was greater than the supply.  In 1553 a Gallóglach received the equivalent of 4d (pence) per day, but by 1562 the pay had risen to 8d a day.  The Consapal received considerably higher wages.  This was done via deadpays or the wages of a soldier in a córugud (company) that went to the consapal.  The standard córugud was 100 men on paper, but the actual number of men would be 87 and the pay of the 13 absent men would go to the constable as deadpays.  

The consapal received his pay and 13 addition soldiers' pay which was a substantial wage in the day.  The pay was received in a variety of ways. It could be cattle, or goods, or food, etc., or coin realm. If in coin realm there was considerable difference between pay in Scots coinage, Irish coinage, and English coinage.  Scots money in particular was considerably debased and worth much less than English money. 

The pay of the Redshanks increased throughout the 1500s.  They were in very high demand as the wars against the Elizabethan English escalated and as the century progress so did the pay scale of the mercenary Redshanks. The scale of pay fluctuated considerably, but here is an example of daily wages of soldier in the 1500s:

Captain 8s ($390)   

sub captain 4s ($192)

Leeche (medic) 4s ($192)

sergeant 1s ($48)

soldier 8d ($32) 

 

For perspective, the yearly income of a country squire at this time was around 100 to 150 pounds.  A Redshank consapal could expect at least 72 pounds for a half year's work, plus would often have other benefits, such as a horse to ride, a pack horse, and arms, supplied to him.  This would put him on par with the gentry of his age.  A particularly well placed and successful Redshank consapal could earn more than this figure and rise to the ranks of an elevated country squire or more.  

MacFarlane in Ulster

Members of the MacFarlane Highland Scottish clan settled in Ulster in the sixteenth century, as did many other families from the Scottish Gaeltacht.  The MacFarlane, or more properly, Mac Pharláinn, families were native to the lands west of Loch Lomond.  Many of the Mac Pharláinn families that settled in Ulster were in the Redshank colony in the old Portlough precinct in east Donegal. The Redshanks in the Portlough precinct were part of an elaborate plan initiated by the fifth Earl of Argyll, Giolla Easpuig Donn Caimbeul.  His niece was the famous Iníon Dubh, mother of Aodh Rua Ó Dónaill, and it was on her lands that many Caimbeul sponsored Highland Gaels settled. 

The ruins of Iníon Dubh's castle near Porthall; photo copyright  Jim McKane 2012

In the sixteenth century  Clann Chaimbeul spread from their homelands in mid Argyll extending their bases and influence in both the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland.  Clann Chaimbeul was the most successful kinship group in early modern Scotland.  Their great advantage was they were Gaels, but could operate not only in their traditional Gaelic society, but also in the emerging British world, including the Scottish Lowlands. The earls' (of Argyll, head of Clann Chaimbeul) main base was Inveraray on Loch Fyne, and there they had access to the Firth of Clyde and the western seas including the North Channel passage to Ireland.  The Mac Pharláinns of Arrochar were drawn into Lord Argyll's elaborate network of allies and they were one of the many Redshank families that settled in east Donegal.

For more information of Mac Pharláinn families in Ulster follow the link below.


Link:  Mac Pharláinn in Ulster

The Laggan Redshanks

A Short History of the Laggan Redshanks, 1569-1630, was published in July and is now available on the Ulster Heritage website as a Pdf download suitable for Ipad, computers, and will read on a Kindle or similar device.  There is also a Kindle copy available from Amazon, though the download version has better graphics.

A Short History of the Laggan Redshanks, 1569-1630, is the story of the Highland Scots, called Redshanks, which settled in east Donegal in the sixteenth century.  The story has many interesting elements which include Clan Campbell and their dynamic leader, Gaelic sexual intrigues, English Machiavellian manoeuvres, Iníon Dubh, and the Redshanks themselves. 

The Redshank settlement in the Laggan took place in the tumultuous years that were dominated by Elizabethan English attempts to bring Ulster firmly under the control of the Crown.  The initial wave of Redshanks came to the Laggan with Iníon Dubh (Fionnuala Nic Dhónaill) after she married Aodh Mac Manus Ó Dónaill in 1569.  The Redshanks were vital players in the affairs of those times and indeed it was their military skills that delayed the conquest of Ulster until the beginning of the next century.  They remained in service of the O'Donnell clan until the Gaelic military collapse after the Battle of Kinsale in 1602.

After Kinsale they remained in the Laggan, but as the Plantation scheme was implemented, they had new lords, the Lennox Stewarts, and the Cunninghams of Ayrshire.  The Laggan Redshanks were unique within the Gaelic world, because they were drawn from clan Campbell and their allies.  The Campbell clan under the leadership of the fifth Earl of Argyll were early converts to the Reformed Faith.  While part of the traditional Gaelic world, the Laggan Redshanks' Protestant faith allowed them to fit into the post Plantation Ulster Scots community in the Laggan.

Many of the Ulster settlers to Colonial America that became the Scots-Irish, were the descendants of the Redshanks from the Laggan.  The Highland Scottish element in the Scots-Irish is a commonly overlooked aspect of the Ulster Migration.  Even more descendants of the Laggan Redshanks migrated to New Brunswick and Ontario Canada in the nineteenth century. 

The Highland Scottish settlement in the Laggan is an integral part of the shared traditions and links between Ulster and Scotland and an important, though little known, aspect of Ulster's long history.  The book runs 79 pages in the Pdf and has a map of the Laggan and illustrations of the dress of the Redshanks in the late 1500s and early 1600s.  

Link to purchase:  A Short History of the Laggan Redshanks

  

Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin

burial stone of Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin of Kilmichael Glassary Argyll

Y Chromosome DNA testing is providing a way to research Redshank families.  One such case is that of Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin, who was a local lord in the parish of Kilmichael Glassry in mid Argyll circa 1460s through 1515 AD.   He was the head of the House of Dunamuck and was a son of Ailean Mac Eáin Mhic Lachlainn, the taoiseach and seneschal of extensive lands in the parish.   The House of Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin, was one of four houses of the Mac Lachlainn clan of Kilmichael Glassary established by the sons Ailean Mac Eáin. The four houses in the aggregate were called the Mac Lachlainns of Dunadd.

The Mac Lachlinns of Dunadds, while part of the greate Clann Mhic Lachlainn structure, increasingly became allied to the Caimbeul clan in the late 1400s and throughout the 1500s.  Donnchadh Mór Mac Eáin served as an official for the Giolla Easpuig Caimbuel, the 4th Earl of Argyll.  His descendants also served as tacsmen, baliffs, and captains for the 5th and 6th Earls of Argyll.  

The movement of Redshanks to Ulster were controlled by the Earls of Argyll.  In Donegal Redshanks became to settle, rather than return after the campaign season, by the mid 1500s.  DNA results located the descendants of the Mac Lachlainns of Dunadd that had moved to Taughboyne Parish, Donegal.

Argyll Redshanks in the thousands relocated there beginning in the late summer of 1569 as part of Caimbeul plans and ambitions in west Ulster.  Notably the marriage of Fionnuala Nic Dhónaill, popularly called Iníon Dhubh, to Aodh Mac Manus Ó Dónaill in August of 1569.  She was the cousin of the 5th Earl of Argyll and many Caimbeul Redshank accompanied her to Donegal.  Iníon Dhubh had her main house at Mongalvin, just south of St Johnston.  Her Redshanks settled in the six or so miles between Porthall and  Carrigans.  This allowed them to control the two ports on the Foyle River at St Johnston and Carrigans.  

The Redshank community thrived and their descendants are still very numerous in the area.  

Redshank Ethnicity

A watershed moment has taken place in the field of early Western European history. It is a paradigm shift that has totally changed forever how early European history will be taught. It is the concept that Celtic languages and the people that spoke them originated in the Atlantic Zone during the Bronze Age. Dr Barry Cunliffe and Dr John Koch have co-edited Cetlic From the West which has an excellent presentation of exactly where the the field of Celtic studies stands in the first part of the 21st Century.

The Celtic from the West theory is a major departure from the long-established, but increasingly problematic paradigm from late Victorian times in which the story of the Ancient Celtic languages and people were linked to the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of Iron Age west-central Europe.

Celtic From the West also brings to an English-language readership some of the rapidly unfolding and too often neglected evidence of the pre-Roman peoples and languages of the western Iberian Peninsula.

Celtic from the West is a multidisciplinary project and multi-year research initiative undertaken by the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. It represents the current state of Celtic studies and the thoughts of the leading researchers. Contributors are: (Archaeology) Barry Cunliffe; Raimund Karl; Amilcar Guerra; (Genetics) Brian McEvoy & Daniel Bradley; Stephen Oppenheimer; Ellen Rrvik; (Language) Graham Isaac; David Parsons; John T. Koch; Philip Freeman; Dagmar S. Wodtko.

Celtic From the West is available from the Ulster Heritage Amazon Associate Book Shop under the 'Ancient History' section: Link... Ulster Heritage Book Shop and from McCain's Book Shop.

The Laggan Redshanks

Upcoming will be posts on the research on the Redshank settlements along the Foyle River. These were located along the west bank of the Foyle in present day Taughboyne parish and to a lessor extent on the east bank in northwest Tyrone.

The largest influx of Redshank came with Fionnuala Ní Dhónaill, or as she is often called in popular history, Iníon Dubh. She was the formidable wife of Aodh Mac Manus Ó Dónaill; she was also the cousin of Giolla Easpuig Caimbeul, who was the 5th Earl of Argyll. It was he that orchestrated Iníon Dubh's marriage to the Ó Dónaill and also supplied the Redshanks that settled around St Johnston.

Most of these men were recruited from the Earl's lands in mid Argyll, in what was then the heart of the Scottish Gaeltacht. These Redshanks all had Clann Chaimbeul associations and most were drawn from families that had Man Rent contracts with Clann Caimbeul. Many of the surnames of these families are well known even today in Donegal; surnames such as Crawford, MacAllen, Campbell, McKean, McClay, etc. These Redshanks moved to east Donegal beginning in the late summer of 1569, but during Iníon Dubh's tenure as de facto leader of Clann Úí Dhónaill she made many trips to both the 5th and 6th Earls of Argyll to procure additional warriors from the Caimbeul lands in Argyll.

Many of the descendants of this group of Redshanks are participants in the Ulster Heritage DNA Project. Their DNA results often reveal their actual point of origin in mid Argyll. The DNA results reveal also that most of them have the typical Atlantic Zone Celtic haplogroup, though as expected some also carry Norse paternal ancestry.

Gallóglach and Redshank

The photo above is courtesy of the Claíomh blog, which is a very good site to visit to see how the various warriors from the 1450 AD through the 1600s really looked. In the photo above there is a Gallóglach on the left and a Redshank on the right. Redshank was an English term in wide use from the early 1500s onwards; in Gaelic speaking areas the Redshanks were called the Albainigh, which means literally 'Scots.' By the mid 1500s the pay of the Redshanks was on par with that of the elite Gallóglaigh. The two handed sword was a favoured weapon of the Redshanks. In Gaelic called simply a Claíomh mór.

Link of interest: Claíomh

Redshank History

My research into the Redshank settlements in Ireland began innocently enough, through research into my own McCain family history. The McCain family is originally from mid Argyll, from the parishes of Glassary Kilmichael and Kilmartin. They were a fixture there from the early 1400s to the late 1500s. At some point post 1570 they migrated to east Donegal to the area known as the Laggan. They show up in the written records in 1630 around St Johnston. They, in time, became part of the general 'Ulster Scot' community there, but they were not stereotypical Planter stock, in that they were Highland Gaels. As I researched their history I also uncovered the story of many families that moved from mid Argyll to the St Johnston area during the mid to late 1500s.

There were two areas in Ulster where Redshanks settled in large numbers, in east Donegal as mentioned, and also in north Antrim. Over the years I have located primary sources that mention them and there is also new data coming from the DNA testing results, that provide a good basic history of the Ulster Redshank families. For various reasons, the history of Scottish Highlanders that migrated to Ulster, has not been written about much by historians. These reason involve Irish cultural politics, the general marginalisation of Gaelic history in general, and just basic lack of interest in perhaps what is seen by some as a minor aspect of Ulster history when compared to the grand themes there starting with the Elizabethan attempts at conquest of Ulster to the tumultuous 17th Century events of Plantation and epic wars.

The Redshanks are usually mention only in passing in histories as summer warriors that travelled from Argyll to Ulster to serve in the armies of various Irish Gaelic lords, and then who returned back to Scotland at the end of the campaign season. However, by the mid 1500s, some Redshanks began to settle in communities in Ulster.

Most Redshanks were typical Scottish Gaels, but some were from the Scottish Lowlands, usually from Ayrshire and Gallowayshire. The Crawfords of Ayrshire and example of a Lowland Redshank family that settled in numbers in east Donegal in 1570.

Future post will provide the basic history of the Redshank families, including surnames, points of origin in Scotland, where they settled in Ireland, and where that are found today in the Diaspora.